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I'm Not 30 Yet

It took a month, but my Predaking set arrived yesterday.
This was my one present to myself for Christmas, and while I had to stretch the holiday out for the traditional twelve days, my epiphany was not that Jesus was the son of God, but that my toys arrived.
Since I'm lazy, I'll reproduce the list of pictures here:

Predaking Pics

Whoop de doo.
The Predacons were one of the Holy Grail sets of old school Transformerdom. The other was Fortress Maximus, a transforming play set that stood around 2 feet tall in robot form, which towered like a colossus over every other Transformer ever made by at least half a foot. I've seen Fort Max live on two occasions, once on sale for $300 loose, and the other time just standing at a dealer table in an attempt to lure people into spending money. An unAmerican fit of fiscal responsibility stayed my hand, otherwise I may have landed the big one.
But I'd never laid eyes on Predaking.
I dimly recall seeing one or two of the individual Predacons on sale back in 1986 or 1987 at a store called Ames (kind of a low-rent Kmart, and much like the dodo, extinct in my area). According to legend, one of my middle school buddies had all five. The presence of these five units was the topic of a whole conversation between myself and another buddy, at some murky point in the past when the four of us (there was yet another) were trying to arrange a massive play date. The play date turned into a swap meet where we basically overhauled each other's collections.
But I never caught sight of the mythic Predaking. To this day I'm not sure whether this kid was pulling our legs, or whether he had the goods. His parents were well off, so either one is possible. The truth matters less than the lost opportunity.
Some people have asked me why I don't write toy reviews, given my interests. I like taking pictures and writing about toys as much as anything else I love in life, but the idea of sitting and analyzing a particular toy, or set of toys, sits ill with me. I'm not interested in counting points of articulation, pondering color designs, or pontificating about how much better the toy could have been.
That having been said, I'll share some thoughts on this particular set. All five pieces have the same general color scheme, sharing lots of reds, oranges, yellows, and blacks, with occasional gold accent thrown in at random points. The net effect of this brings to mind a strange combination of jungle creatures and forest fires, but I love it anyway. These five belong together and the shared color scheme underscores that.
Besides, anything with black and oranges gets bonus points with me. But I digress.
The idea of a unique combiner set started with the Constructicons, six construction vehicles that shared a color scheme of green and purple. These six fit together in a particular configuration to form a monolithic super robot, although the effectiveness of that relies on some extraneous pieces (you need the waist piece and the head piece to finish it off). Each individual Constructicon is about the same size (three or four inches tall).
The next wave of combiners shared a similar design: four (or five in the case of the Seacons) basic sized pieces and one deluxe sized 'leader'. The four basics could swap out as legs or arms and connect to the deluxe. You could (and I did) swap pieces from one set with another for play or display functions. The interchangeability was a big marketing point in Japan, but the idea never took off stateside, perhaps because Hasbro wanted to market the combiner teams separately to maximize sales. Most of my cohorts had a number of the individual pieces (there were seven sets using this basic design), with a torso piece or three, but rarely any more than one whole set at best. This occurred most often because our parents had better things to spend money one, although I know from personal experience that it is not easy to track down a whole set for one team, let alone a half dozen others.
It took me forever to find a G2 Hook, for example, to finish off Devastator, and I even had to fudge it with one orange piece and five yellow one.
The Predacons were a fusion of the two concepts: five components, but all of the same size, and with no more than four combinations possible. The five components are all deluxe sized, measuring up to about the height of an Optimus Prime figure. Like the rest of the combiners, about the only action component lies in moving the arms up and down, although the joints are so tight in my set that I hesitate to do so for fear of breaking anything. Because of the size of the pieces, Predaking itself is taller than any other G1 combiner, and heavier too. The set I have has die cast metal parts, but even if all the parts were plastic (which I believe was the case for some of the product's run), Predaking would have more bulk. The colors come out to play in the combined form and as a result the piece displays beautifully, better than any of the individual components would alone, although the grey fists and feet serve as a striking reminder that this is, after all, supposed to be a robot). The whole does exceed the sum of its parts in this instance. The only complaint I have is that the wings are a pain to attach to the back of the beast. The die cast pieces may also lead to some loosening of joints down the road, as they do with all toys of this type.
The individual pieces have their own quirks. Divebomb presents a balancing challenge in eagle form since the claws themselves extend from what turn out to be the knees of the robot. In effect, rather than looking bird legged, the eagle looks like it's had its legs chopped off at the knees, and it balances that way. The wings can detach from the back which makes them seem a little flimsy in comparison with the rock solidity of the base figure, although this is something that has no effect of it visually. The robot form isn't very poseable, although this is the case for most toys from the 80s. The knees bend and the arms move up and down. Some parts have additional shifting as a by-product of the transformation. The fists slide out from the wrists, although it seems that more effect than necessary is needed to expose them, but this, too, is consistent with other toys of the same type. Black and orange dominate, with red, yellow, and gold playing supporting roles. The transformation is very simple. This forms the left arm of the combined figure, although I suppose that it could easily form the right.
Headstrong, the rhinoceros, also presents a balancing challenge, but in robot form. The entire back of both modes is composed of two slabs of die cast metal, so the robot has a tendency to fall on its ass. The robot legs are fused together and do not move except to the extent that they slide in and out of the torso/back piece as a by-product of the transformation. The arms bend at the elbows and the shoulder. The rhinoceros form is pretty unremarkable. In both modes yellow dominates, with black and red in strong support. The transformation is very simple. This piece forms the left leg of Predaking.
Rampage, the tiger, is probably my favorite individual figure as far as being a toy i concerned. Both forms have a healthy dose of red and orange with some yellow and black thrown in, and both are pretty well proportioned. The knees bend and the arms move up and down in robot form. Getting the robot arms to move takes more effort than seems necessary. This piece forms the right arm of Predaking, although it could work as well as a left arm.
Razorclaw, the lion, displays pretty well in both forms. The arms move up and down, although they are very short and take a phenomenal amount of effort to actually move. The legs bend weirdly at the knees. The color scheme balances yellow, black, and red with a touch of orange and gold around the lion face, prominently featured in both modes. The lion mode itself shares the same color balance, with black becoming slightly more dominant. Since this piece forms the torso of Predaking, the color balance makes a lot of sense. There's enough color to keep the figure interesting.
Tantrum, the bull, is mostly orange in both forms, with red and black showing up strong and yellow bringing up the rear. This is the only figure in the set to have actual grey pieces (the fists and feet). I guess any other color would have displeased the eye based on the color placement. The robot legs are fused and the arms swing back and forth at the shoulder, bending at the elbow. A part of me wants to call Tantrum the odd man out of the group, what with the grey pieces and the odd back and forth waving motion of the arms, not to mention that this is a bull in a set otherwise dominated by creature of the wild, but that's neither here nor there. This piece forms the right leg of Predaking.
In looking at the figures as individuals pieces as well as parts of a whole, it's plain to see that this is a set first and individuals toys second. That makes sense from a marketing perspective, except that the sale of the individual pieces runs counter to the esthetic intent, perhaps harming the sales figures for this particular set as individuals. I can't imagine that all five pieces would have been on the same shelves at the same time. That's probably why I, greedy little punk that I was, would ask for something with a little more play value. Besides, neither of my parents would have shelled out $70 to pick up all five, and only the lunatic that I am today would spend 2.5 times that amount to get the whole set.
But I have my grail now. I'm happy and I didn't have to sacrifice too much (food notwithstanding). Isn't that the point?

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