Monsterbot Grotusque

www.botchthecrab.com

It's been a bit since I got something vintage, what with all this new stuff coming out.  What better way to go old school than by finally completing my Monsterbots?  Grotusque is here and it's time to celebrate. 

Before I get into the review, I'd like to relate a story.  When I first got back into collecting G1 figures way back in 1999, I felt that the prices were outrageous on eBay, the only way I knew to get older figures, so I never really bought that many figures.  I think I may have bought one figure a year, maybe two.  At any rate, in 2005, I found an auction for a Doublecross with box working spark, stickers not applied, tech spec, unused decal sheet, and paperwork that I won for a whopping $25.  At the time, I felt it was ridiculously high price.  But, it got me on a tradition of getting Monsterbots for cheap.  I got working Repugnus a couple of years ago without stickers and gun for $17; I already had somehow managed to get his gun at some point in my childhood and managed to hang on to it.  Getting Grotusque brought about a lot of trepidation simply because I wanted to keep this tradition going.  Would I?  You bet you Aunt Sally I did.  One day I got a coupon from eBay for $20 off thanks to their security breach or whatever, plus I had some eBay Bucks that I had acquired.  All in all, I may have paid $30 for Grotusque.  The tradition continued.

Grotusque's alt mode is a griffin?  A liger?  A gargoyle?  I don't know.  It's cool looking, however.  A distinguishing feature with Grotusque is that in his monster mode, he's able to mount a weapon, in this case on his back.  Neither Doublecross nor Repugnus are able to do this.  Once they're in they're monster modes, the guns go in storage.

There are apparently two ways of transforming Grotusque into creature mode.  There's this way, which is depicted in the instructions, and the way where his back isn't completely curved.  The second way supposedly looks better, but I'll just stick with this way.

Another unique feature with Grotusque is that his wings are removable.  This is to help with transformation into robot mode, but I've been able to keep them mostly on during transformation.  They just wiggle off a bit.

Here's a side shot of Grotusque.  Like most figures of his day, the only articulation is in the arms.  I'm really impressed by how majestic Grotusque looks.  He's barrel chested.  Looking at this pic, I'm not 100% sure that I have his monster legs in this mode.  Oh well, it'll suffice.

Finally, a shot of all three Monsterbots.  All had for under $100.  Not bad.  Now, if only I had thought to include Kup and Rodimus Prime in this pic, then I could recreate the commercial...