Bot Reviews: Transformers: Power of the Primes Prime Master Skullgrin/Liege Maximo

Previously, on Bot Reviews! I took a look at Legacy Skullgrin, who turned out to be a bit of a sleeper hit, and a surprise highlight of the Legacy line for me, because of what an endearing oddball on a conceptual and engineering level he was, on top of just being a good figure. But while I liked what that version was doing, a part of me still wanted to see an update of the character that preserved his original gimmick of being a Pretender, a Transformer who, in addition to his standard robot and alternate mode, could fit inside an organic shell for an additional layer of (questionable) disguise. Or maybe that extra layer was power armor, or an environmental suit, depending on the author. Speaking of authors, let me take a moment to again plug his only starring role, the reason most people care about him in 2023, Bob Budianski’s Marvel Comics issue, “Monstercon from Mars.”

But back to the figures. Wouldn’t you know it, there was an older release that imitated his original Pretender setup, back during 2018’s Power of the Primes line. And I happened to stumble across it in a comic shop, for a sub-retail price, so I snapped it up. This older version of Skullgrin was a Prime Master, a tiny little size class that I previously talked about when I reviewed the line’s take on Bludgeon. Like I noted back then, there’s some conceptual oddness around these guys, in that they’re also possibly supposed to represent the original 13 Primes, in disguise, meaning Skullgrin is also a tiny figure of Liege Maximo, a villain whom I mostly know as being a last-page unresolved cliffhanger of a plot twist in the final issue of Marvel’s old Generation 2 comic from 1994.

As a liker of the bizarre 90’s mess that was Generation 2, and a Legacy Jhiaxus owner (Maximo was his boss in the comic), that holds an appeal for me, too. On the other hand, the lore around how these Prime masters actually worked was really vague (they weren’t in any comics or tv shows at all), and (almost) nothing about him really looks like Maximo, so I mostly just think of him as Skullgrin in Mini-Monstercon form. All of the Prime Masters basically worked the same way, outside of their sculpts, so it’s going to be hard not to repeat a bunch of stuff from my Bludgeon review, but I’ll try.

Pretender Shell

Standing only a little bit taller than a Siege/Earthrise Micromaster, but a lot stouter, Skullgrin is the perfect size to be a tiny desktop toy. The small scale even fits with his appearances in the Masterforce anime, where he could shrink down to human scale in his shell.

At first glance, he’s designed to resemble his original Pretender shell, an armored figure with a skull-face, looking like something out of a fantasy setting. But looking closer, there’s a difference in how he’s sculpted. His classic Pretender shell was made to look very organic, full of wrinkles and imperfections. This version of the design has been made to be smoothed out and angular, looking more technological as a result, or as a fancier version of his original armor. It’s a good look, it’s just different, and it’s particularly interesting to compare to the Legacy one, and see what they kept, and what they changed.

He’s got a skeletal head uptop, missing the lower jaw (a deco mistake on the original toy that later releases have taken as gospel), with both tusks and curved horns, looking like it belongs on the cover of a Metal album, and even, coincidentally, looking a bit like Liege Maximo.

The more symmetrical detail on his head it makes it read more as a helmet or mask, and he actually has hollow eyes, positioned in a perfect way for the inner robot to see out of, a nice detail. For another  funny bit of detail, he’s also got a little skull on his belt, sculpted in a way that’s especially cartoony, including three tiny teeth. Beyond that, he’s kind of wide and blocky, and doesn’t really attempt to hide having a mono-leg, or a bulky backpack behind him. But at this scale, it’s fine.

For deco, he’s mostly purple and gray. It’s a lighter, more vibrant purple than the Legacy figure, and makes for a very classic “late G1 Decepticon” set of colors. He’s also got a bone-white skull and belt, and a millimeter-tall Decepticon logo on his chest. It’s fairly simple, and nowhere near as ornate as Bludgeon’s deco, but it works well for him.

Of course, because of his gimmick, while he’s very blocky and stable, his articulation is barely present, consisting only of swiveling shoulders, the same as his G1 figure. It’s just enough for him to wave his fists around menacingly, though.

He can also wave around his lone accessory!

So, Skullgrin comes with a gigantic (compared to him) three-bladed claw, with its curved blades painted silver, over a purple base. From what I can tell, it’s not based on any of his classic accessories. It’s also so huge on him that it looks kind of funny when he waves it around.

It pegs into either fist via a tiny tab, and you can even flip it over to under-sling it, like a big, useless scoop.

It can also fit into a swiveling joint at the top of his back and hang down it for storage (and for his alternate mode), though I tend to leave it off because of how huge it looks.

It was initially a really tight, difficult fit, but seems to have quickly been broken in.

Inner Robot

Like I said last time I looked at one of these, there’s something indescribably nifty about the way you flick down the front of the Pretender shell, to show off the inner robot nestled inside. It’s like a small bot piloting a mech suit of some kind, and it really makes the whole figure come together. The inner bot’s in there really tight on my copy, though, and I’m glad I haven’t trimmed my nails recently.

So, yes, this little bot is a Titan Master in all but name, less than an inch tall. I guess it’s technically supposed to be Liege Maximo, but there’s nothing about the sculpt to suggest it.

Instead, he’s a small, simplified version of Skullgrin’s original inner robot. It’s actually a pretty impressive downscaling, there’s a lot of tiny details on his torso, limbs, and head pretty faithfully replicated (and it’s interesting seeing miniature details that later got mapped to Legacy Skullgrin’s torso).

It works better than Bludgeon did, and one reason is because they got the colors right, though that’s probably because he’s the same purple and gray as the shell. Still, they also found a tiny bit of paint budget for his head, making his face and helmet separate colors, and that little bit really goes a long way.

For articulation, he’s the same as every other Titan and Prime Master: A neck joint, shoulders, hips and knees, with a fused mono-leg, which is actually pretty impressive for something this small. On my copy, his knees are weirdly stiff and tight, though not to the point of causing problems.

Flip his legs in, and he’s transformed into Prime Spark mode, a little artifact meant to imbue compatible Power of the Primes figures with Liege Maximo’s power of (checks the Wiki) being able to convince people about stuff? Having the gift of the gab? That’s a fun one.

Of course, this was all theater-of-the-mind stuff, this little thing doesn’t actually do anything, and feels like kind of a waste as a result.

As for what’s here, it’s a kind of sculpted crest, with details in the middle picked out in green paint. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but I kind of read the green details as an abstract face, and the stuff around it as a helmet, which is funny considering his power. It also means that it sort of works as a Titan Master head, if you want to give it to a Titans Return figure.

As I said last time, though, I kind of wish they’d figured out a way to fudge a vehicle mode instead, even if it was just by sculpting the top of one instead of the Prime Spark. It wouldn’t have looked great, but it would have made this figure feel complete on its own. The old Pretenders had ropey vehicle modes anyway, this would be continuing that.

Combined Weapon

To reach this mode, you just flip up the back-mounted claw on the pretender shell, flip down a tab between its feet, and attach the Prime Spark to his back, using a pair of small pegs that stick to the inner robot’s feet.

At the end of it, you’ve got some kind of scratching claw weapon. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, the way Bludgeon’s gun mode did, but it does remind me of the recently-released Cheetor Sword Battlemaster toy in the Rise of the Beasts line.

Considering Liege Maximo is supposed to be able to convince people of stuff, maybe it’s a backscratcher. He scratches your back, you scratch the user’s? And hope they don’t notice that it’s an unaltered Skeleton Person when viewed from below.

Either way, it’s compatible with the modern five-millimeter weapon system, so plenty of figures can hold it, or mount it on them.

Most importantly, Legacy Skullgrin can interact with himself.

Overall

This is a nifty little size-class that I totally skipped over when it was new, featuring an interesting kind of exo-suit gimmick that looks cool, and is fun to do. And as a representation of Skullgrin, it’s surprisingly faithful to the original, inside and out.

Still, it is hampered by the extremely undercooked Prime Spark gimmick, which stops him from feeling like the Complete Skullgrin Experience. That, and his scratchy weapon mode’s kind of nonsense, though it’s fun nonsense. Despite that, I find that I actually like him a bit better than I did Bludgeon, and I think it’s the fact that the designers got the inner robot right that nudges Skullgrin ahead of the other Skeleton Warrior.

An important thing here was I got him for about ten Canadian dollars, mint on card. I don’t remember what these guys originally cost, but that feels about what he’s worth, in terms of plastic, paint, and features. I wouldn’t really pay any more than that, though I don’t expect these guys cost much on the secondary market. So, if you can get him for a similarly fair price, he’s worth checking out, especially because he’s probably (at least in terms of how he looks, I haven’t handled most of them) one of the strongest entries in this little line.

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