The End of Abominable August - Abominus!

What do you get when you combine five Decepticons together who love to destroy and is fairly mindless?  Menasor!  No, I meant Bruticus!  No?  Abominus?  Yes!  Abominus!  After a 26 year hunt, I have finally completed this monster.  Was he worth the wait?  Read on the find out!

Abominus is brute force unleashed.  Apparently Abominus is even more mindless than the likes of Bruticus and Menasor, according to his profile.  This mindless brute generally fought Computron, his over thinking Autobot counterpart.  Well, that was when Abominus was actually used.  Let's count the times that he's made an appearance in the fiction:

That's one issue of the Headmasters mini-series.  After a bit of a rampage, he gets beaten down by Computron.  How'd he fare in the cartoon series?

Well, aside from being awesomely animated in Call of the Primitives, Abominus got humiliated in Grimlock's New Brain and Money is Everything.  Abominus finally turned the tables on the brainiac in The Return of Optimus Prime.  Abominus was never strictly a Decepticon,  A few times he worked for the Quintessons.  It was never explained why he did, but he did.  So four appearances and Abominus disappeared.  He was definitely a victim of product placement.  Show the new toy, and then move on to the next new toy.  Still, Abominus is a great toy so let's look at that.


I first tried to complete Abominus as a kid when I purchased Cutthroat at K-B Toys in Niagara Falls, NY.  At the Children's Palace in Niagara Falls, I acquired Blot and Rippersnapper.  Sinnertwin and Hun-Gurrr?  I could never find them, that I can remember.  I did wind up with an accessory-less Hun-Gurrr two years later, but that was it for the 20-odd years.  Sometime last year, I lost Hun-Gurrr. Because.  And then Rippersnapper's monster head broke off earlier this year.  That proved to be the last straw.  Were the gods telling me something?  Was I not to ever own this giant?  Do I dare defy fate?  Yes!  With a steel resolve, I set about completing this giant.

I'm a big fan of the classic configurations when it comes the fusilateral quintrocombiners, so that's how my giants are always displayed.  Let's get one thing out of the way - Abominus has some skinny thighs.  I'm a fan of thicker thighs (ladies..) so this is a little uncomfortable to look at for me.  These thighs are about as skinny as Superion's.  Still, thanks to Hun-Gurrr's transformation, these sleek, slender legs do have a bit of articulation.

Put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking out the door...

I must admit that from that angle, it looks like Hun-Gurrr is just wearing a pair of stilts, but I love the fact that I can give Abominus a sense of motion while on display.

Hey gurl, lemme holla at ya

Abominus features a bit of bonus articulation in that his head moves.  Other than Defensor, I don't think there are any other combiners with this feature.  Coupled with the leg articulation, this should give me plenty of options when displaying him.

Thus ends Abominable August.  I had a lot of fun scouring for these guys online which turned out to be a great thing as I was able to find the Terrorcons that I was missing for relatively decent prices.  I even paid about half for my complete Hun-Gurrr and got the instruction booklet to boot!  Unfortunately, while writing some of these entries, I started to run out of steam.  The Terrorcons, while great toys, just weren't featured enough in any kind of fiction thanks to the prominence of the 1984 and 1985 cast.  Thankfully, writers are starting to focus on other characters, so hopefully they'll gain a little more fame.  Still, this proved fun enough to warrant another themed month.  Once I work out the details, I'll do another one.

Hun-Grr! Wait, Hun-Gur? No, it's Hun-Gurrr!

Scan from www.botchthecrab.com

We're nearing the finish line of Abominable August!  Previously, I covered Cutthroat, Blot, Sinnertwin and Rippersnapper.  Guess that leaves Hun-Gurrr.  Cue some Spectre General!

Hun-Gurrr is the Terrorcon commander.  He's also a glutton.  If he isn't ordering his Terrorcons around, he's stuffing his pie-hole.  Unless he's in dragon mode, because he can eat and talk at the same time thanks to his two heads.  Multitasking! 

Being a character that debuted in the third season, and a team leader to boot, Hun-Gurrr wasn't prominently featured in the cartoon.  He gave the other Terrorcons orders in a few episodes, merged into Abominus, and that was it.  That's kind of sad.

Hun-Gurrr's impact in the comics was equally pathetic.  His highlight seems to be calling himself and his fellow Terrorcons losers.

Hurray for self esteem!

But I actually like his latest appearance in a comic the best.

There's something about a lobotomized, zombie version of Hun-Gurrr that's oddly appealing.  I hate zombies, but I think that this one is pretty cool.  It was nice of Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman to include some lesser seen characters in Regeneration One.  Wonder if anyone's kitbashed this?  It wouldn't be too hard, I suppose.  Speaking of toys...

My future is so bright.

Here's Hun-Gurrr in mode, and I have to say, that I love this mode.  The back legs feature a decent amount of articulation, and more so in the two necks.  The heads have a decent amount of detailing even if I seem to think that they're wearing sunglasses for some reason.

The colors work well too.  The white and grey just bring out a Gundam feel to me, for some reason.  The pink plating along the spine looks really good as well.

Robot mode is pretty nifty.  The only drawback to me is the waist - it's kind of odd looking to me.  It's almost as if he doesn't have one.  Hun-Gurrr goes from from torso to legs with nothing in between.  Aside from that, I really dig the robot mode.  Thanks to his transformation scheme, Hun-Gurrr has articulation at the shoulders and elbows.  Even better is what you can do with Abominus' chest plate.

 

It's a shield!  Now Hun-Gurrr can shoot from behind cover!  As an added bonus Hun-Gurrr has leg articulation!

That's not the most skilled pose, but you get the point.  It's rare to have a G1 figure with articulation.  Then again, Hun-Gurrr is the torso of a combiner, so he gets a greater range of articulation.

Every combiner leader features a third mode, but Hun-Gurrr was never given one, which is odd.  Thanks to TFWiki, I was able to find what should have been Hun-Gurrr's third base mode.

It's...something alright.

Beautiful, isn't it?  Of course not.  Now I know why this mode was never documented.  I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be.  Is it a repair base like Hot Spot?  Perhaps the world will never actually know.

So now that I've covered Hun-Gurrr, Abominable August comes to a close.  We've had some fun, and covered my newest vintage additions.  I think that - what's that?  What about Abominus?  Fine.  Very well, because the tens of you that read this page demanded it, I'll cover Abominus next post!  I'll save the post month dissection for that post.  Until then, stay frosty!

Overkill! Wait, I mean Rippersnapper!

Scan from www.botchthecrab.com

We're at the halfway point of Abominable August, and thus far I've had a blast.  This next post will serve two purposes: educate and entertain.  First, on to the education.

For those of you who are unaware, my Transformer collection languished in my garage for about 6 years.  That's where my wife wanted it, so that's where it was displayed.  Earlier this year, I finally convinced her to let me bring it into the house.  Rippersnapper was the catalyst.

Have you ever wondered what effects extreme swings in temperature have on plastic?  I used to, now I don't have to, again, thanks to Rippersnapper.  One day during the winter, I decided to transform Rippersnapper from beast mode to robot.  I lifted up the shark head and it snapped off.  So that necessitated a new Rippersnapper.  Joy.

Nice land shark mode.

No!

 I've hemmed and hawed about replacing ol' Rippersnapper for months.  Should I?  When?  Then I decided to do this themed month about Abominus, and I was presented with the perfect opportunity.  Here's my new Rippersnapper.

Jabberjaw

 As you can see, this is version without the rub-sign indent.  Towards the end of 1987, Hasbro phased out the rub-signs on their figures.  That's a shame, because I really enjoy the rub-signs.  At any rate, finding these variants isn't difficult.  The stickers on this guy aren't that great, but that's what Reprolabels are for.

"Candygram"

Rippersnapper is equipped with a twin missile launcher in land shark mode.  I've gotta say, that I'm a little saddened by how lazy that seems.  The name, that is.  After all of the acid launchers, twin ion cannons, rubber guns and all that, I would think that someone could have come up with a better weapon name.  Then again, maybe after coming up with all of those names, the guys at Hasbro ran out of steam.  It happens.

Robot mode on Rippersnapper is pretty standard.  Move some legs around, pull the legs out and flip the shark head back and you've got yourself a robot!  A robot with a cyclone gun!  A kibbly robot with a cyclone gun.

So many limbs

Now on to the entertaining part!  I promised entertainment, and I'm going to deliver.  For some reason, I have a mental block with Rippersnapper.  Every time I look at him, I immediately think that his name is Overkill.  When I type his name into the TFWiki, I type "Overkill" and get shocked every single time this pops up:

Not a limb for Abominus

I'm fairly certain that this only happens because of the similar color schemes, but man is it confusing. As a matter of fact, I've had to edit this entry several times to get rid of any instances where I  called Rippersnapper Overkill.  Hard work, I tell ya.  Only two more posts and then Abominable August is over.  See you for the next entry - Hun-Gurrr!

Sinnertwin

Box scan from Botch the Crab

Abominable August continues with this, the latest addition to the Terrorcons, Sinnertwin!  Sinnertwin is one of those figures that I really wanted as a kid, but for some reason I never got him.  Thankfully, he's pretty easy to find on the secondary market, if a little more pricey than the rest of his teammates.  I seriously saw Sinnertwin figures going for upwards of $70 on eBay.  That's stupidly expensive for a Scramble City style limb.

Sinnertwin's appeal to me had nothing to do with any of his fictional appearances, which I will breakdown in the following panels:

That's pretty much the totality of what Sinnertwin has done, so there isn't anything to really make me overtly attached to him, character-wise.  What drove me to like Sinnertwin is the fact that he's a two-headed Orthus.  As a kid, I thought that he was two-headed dragon or dog, but it turns out I was wrong.  The horns, the twin heads of mass destruction, all add up to awesome for a 10-year-old.

Armed Demon Dog

One thing that I didn't realize was that he's yellow, and I mean YELLOW.  Photographing him in my lightbox with the white backdrop proved to be a little harder than I anticipated.  It really made me wish that I hadn't lost the other backdrops.

I have to say, Sinnertwin is a little more primary than I had imagined.  Gold, I think, would have made a better choice of colors.  Still, the detailing on the heads looks amazing.  

Thick, like a leg..

Transformation is fairly straightforward.  Pull the legs out, flip the head and reposition the Orthus legs and you have a robot.  A robot that's perfectly suited to being a leg.

The only problem that I have with this mode would be the legs.  Sinnertwin essentially looks like a mass of legs holding a gun.  For some reason, I'm actually surprised by this.  I know that Sinnertwin is a Scramble City combiner and that he's a product of 1980's toy engineering, but I'm still taken aback by the leg kibble.

 

Kibble and primary colors aside, there's something charming about this guy.  The little arms coupled with the big honking gun is nifty.  I'm thankful for the red and silver on the stickers to kind of break up the colors.  Still, this is a figure that will most likely always stay in alt-mode.  So that's three down and two to go.  Let's end things with a group shot of the Terrorcons that I have so far.

Blot

Box scan from www.botchthecrab.com

Previously on Abominable August, I outlined how I was going to use the month of August to complete my Terrorcons.  In that post, I showed off my latest purchase - Cutthroat.  For this post, I'll show off a figure that I already had - Blot.

I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated with Blot.  It's not that he's an awesome looking figure; it's that I can't figure out what he's supposed to be!  Is he an ogre?  A troll?  A robotic ape?  Look, I know that Cutthroat is some sort of vast, predatory bird, Hun-Gurrr is a two-headed dragon, Rippersnapper is a land shark, and Sinnertwin is a two-headed dog, but no one can tell me what Blot is.

"Put on your red shoes and dance the blues"

Still no clue, but that's an awesome picture

Seriously, what is that?  Then again, maybe I shouldn't be using horribly animated cartoon cells to try to figure this out.  It feels like I'm analyzing that old Sasquatch footage.  I feel like I should be on Bigfoot Chasers.  Maybe a clue can be gleaned from the Marvel comic?

Nope.  Oh well, it's a mystery that will drive me crazy until the day I die.  Or quit caring.  Whatever he is, Blot is awesome.

SERIOUSLY?  What is he?!

 Here we have Blot at rest.  He's not moving at all.  He's relaxed.  When I originally got Blot in 1987, I could've sworn that he was wearing boots.  Anyway, let's look at Blot when he's not hanging out and ready to go out and attack the Technobots.

Pretty nifty.  That's the thing I've always loved about Scramble City Combiners - the attack modes.  They're just awesome.

Blot's monster mode gives many hints as to robot mode.  The long arms fold back and the feet get rotated up.  Then you pull the torso up and flip his head up.  He pretty much looks like the monster mode with a robot head.

Due to his monster mode, Blot has a really wide torso.  It's obvious that Blot works out. Blot's arms are stubby, but they get the job done.

That about wraps it up for this post.  I've got two Terrorcons down and three left to acquire.  So far, this is turning in to a great month.