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Zob's Retro Review: Autobot Micromaster Monster Trucks Patrol (1990)

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Zobovor

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Sep 16, 2022, 2:40:58 PM9/16/22
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This is the last of the Micromaster Patrols I needed to complete my set of four-packs released in the USA. After this, I'll have to look at the various Micromaster Transports and Micromaster Bases, plus a couple of Combiner six-packs that I still need.

I've lamented in the past that this specific set has been hard to find on eBay, but honestly I think it's because I'm dumb and don't know my Transformers names. For some reason, I had it stuck in my head that the team was called the Monster Truck Patrol, when in fact their proper name is the Monster Trucks Patrol, plural. It doesn't make sense and doesn't follow the existing naming scheme (there isn't a Race Cars Patrol or a Sports Cars Patrol, after all), but I think that contributed to my difficulty in finding the set. Go figure!

The four-pack I bought had a damaged version of Hydraulic, but the others were in such great shape that I couldn't pass it up. I've got other Hydraulic auctions I'm watching as we speak. In the meantime...

BIG HAULER
"The battle isn't over until the last Decepticon has fallen."

Big Hauler (not to be confused Road Hauler, or Hauler-Bot, or just plain Hauler) is a little tractor trailer cab. He's shaped like a 1989 Kenworth cab, complete with big horkin' smokestacks on either side, only with super-deformed styling and big monster truck tires. To my eyes, though, due to his green coloring with yellow undercarriage, he reads like a John Deere tractor. I can't see him and not think of farm tractors.

To transform him, the rear of the truck unfolds to form the feet, with the smokestacks and the platforms to which they're attached forming some very long and pointy toes. As a robot, he's got green arms and legs, a yellow body and head, and blue-painted pelvis and robot face. He's honestly quite unremarkable.

The Siege version of Irontread had robot-mode detailing that was sculpted to resemble the G1 version of Big Hauler, and the clear intent was to eventually do a Big Hauler redeco of Irontread. That never happened, though, which means Big Hauler remains a character with no neo-G1 toy, despite getting one designed specifically after him!

HEAVY TREAD
"I ram Decepticons into the breakdown lane, just for the fun of it!"

Heavy Tread might be the most bizarre of all the U.S. Micromaster vehicles. He's a race car and is sort of shaped like a Tyrell P-38, like Drag Strip, only with gigantic rear wheels. How is this a monster truck? He seems to be a modified vehicle like the type used in tractor pulling competitions, in which heavily-refitted tractors compete to see which can tow the heaviest load. To that end, he's got two six-cylinder engines (some tractor pulling vehicles have three!) and a seat in the back for a driver (usually there's a cage over the driver's seat in case the vehicle tips over). As with all the six-wheeled Micromasters, two of the wheels are fake. (He really could have used some silver paint to copy the look of the metal pins holding the true wheels in place.) His vehicle mode is two inches in length, bright orange with light grey engines.

Transforming him just involves unfolding the rear of the vehicle to form the leg stump, a single piece of plastic with no discernible feet, and flipping the hood down. Due to the way he's designed, the hood doesn't fold down enough to expose his robot face, so there's no way he can see past his own chest. His head and face design are very similar to that of Jazz. Structurally, he remains a lot like Drag Strip, especially the way he's got pairs of wheels on each of his robot shoulders. His arms are connected to his lower torso, though, like Swindle, and he looks kind of doofy with his arms raised. He's skinny and lanky compared to the very beefy-looking Big Hauler.

You can kind of tell they were experimenting with new types of Micromaster designs so that they didn't get stale, but this is probably a less successful execution than most. I hate it when characters can't see over their own chest armor (SEE: Pretender Jazz; SEE ALSO: G2 Rapido) and some further design modifications could have prevented this. But, Hasbro probably saw the writing on the wall and knew this was the final product year for Transformers, so it's doubtful they wanted to invest a lot into the research and development for these guys.

HYDRAULIC
"Hit them hard and they'll fall like rocks!"

Many years ago there was a fan comic about the Micromasters, and the storyline was that Hydraulic had been killed and the other Micromasters were trying to figure out who did it. I didn't read every issue, and I can't even remember who the writer/artist was right now, but without any other existing media depiction, I always remember Hydraulic as "the one who died."

It's worth mentioning that the word "hydraulic" has been used in Transformers slang parlance to mean something like "great" or "amazing." Witness the line of Jazz dialogue from "More Than Meets the Eye" part 2 when he saves Optimus Prime with his grappling hook: "Hydraulic, Prime! You did it!" So, basically, this guy being called Hydraulic is like having the name Awesome. He and Rad probably hang out a lot.

Also, the Hydraulic toy I got had a glued-on right front wheel, which doesn't affect the toy's look or transformation, but it still bugs me a bit. He's getting replaced.

Hydraulic is a blue-and-orange monster truck, just like Mudslinger. A lot of people on eBay seem to confuse him for Mudslinger, in fact. However, Mudslinger is a darker shade of blue, like Pipes, where Hydraulic is a lighter blue, like Gears. I'm not sure why Hasbro felt the need to basically copy the look of an earlier Micromaster. (In their packaging photos, it's a much deeper orange, almost a red color, which would have helped differentiate him from Mudslinger significantly.) Hydraulic is gang-molded with Heavy Tread, and shares the same blue and orange plastic colors.

Where Mudslinger seems to be based directly on Bigfoot, Hydraulic diverges from that look. He's a boxy 1980's pick-up truck, possibly a Toyota 4X4, but with gigantic monster truck tires and a camper shell that's really obviously a pair of robot feet. In this respect he's a lot like Swerve.

Where Mudslinger's front section became the legs, Hydraulic flips the script and transforms exactly like G1 Swerve. There's no flip-up panel to reveal the head as there was with Mudslinger. In this form, he's two inches tall, with blue arms and legs, an orange body and head, and a white-painted pelvis and face. Unlike the complex wheel system on Mudslinger, where half the tire could spin and the other half did not, this version just has black wheels pinned into blue arms.

Weirdly, there was a second Siege toy that seemed like a ready-made Monster Truck Patrol homage that never happened. The toy named Ricon, released in 2019 as part of the Target-exclusive 10-pack, was a retool of the new Highjump, but was given styling meant to evoke the design for G1 Hydraulic. Instead of beign a proper Hydraulic tribute, though, the toy was colored like Tote. Ricon remains a ready-made neo-G1 Hydraulic in the making—all they have to do is give him a blue-and-orange redeco!

Hydraulic is probably my favorite of the four Monster Trucks, but at the end of the day he just feels like a Mudslinger wannabe. Change my mind.

SLOWPOKE
"Too rough to quit, too tough to lose!"

Visually, Slowpoke and Big Hauler are very similar in terms of their vehicle shape and configuration, especially when all I had to go by was some blurry, tiny 1990 catalog photos. The biggest difference is that Slowpoke gets a little tow hook in the back, ostensibly due to the Monster Truck Patrol's role... sorry, Monster TRUCKS Patrol's role in transporting the wounded off the battlefield. He's a much more old-timey truck than Big Hauler, though, with a rounded hood and curved fenders, like a 1949 Chevrolet pick-up. He's predominantly yellow, with a grey tow hook and blue painted windows. The articulated tow hook can pivot up and down.

Slowpoke takes the Mudslinger approach to transformation, with the front of the cab turning into the legs. As a robot, he's two inches tall and he's unusually busy for a Micromaster—yellow arms and legs, but a green torso, blue toes, and a red-painted pelvis and robot face. He looks like a game of Sorry, to be honest. He shares his green and yellow plastic colors with Big Hauler, but looks substantially less farm tractory.

My feeling is that the 1990 Micromasters are harder to come by than the 1989 Micromasters. The 1989 toys were probably produced in greater numbers, and they tend to go for far less money than the 1990 models. This kind of surprises me, since you'd think the 1989 guys would be more in demand, since those were a) the ones I assume most people think of when you say "Micromasters," and they were actually in Marvel Comics in some form. The 1990 guys are more obscure, with no media appearances (outside "Who Plugged Hydraulic Rabbit?" or whatever it was called). But, underproduced toys also tend to go for more on the secondary market just because there are fewer surviving samples, so I get it.

Anyway, I ended up paying $45 for the set of four, but as I said, I still need to look for a non-broken Hydraulic, which I haven't bought yet. (I'm thinking about bidding on a Hydraulic/Heavy Tread auction, and then doing something with the extra Heavy Tread like using the head for a Micromaster Jazz project or something).

I was worried that I would get bored with all these little Micromasters, but honestly I've enjoyed them a lot more than I thought. It's going to be kind of sad when I start going after Pretenders, Powermasters, etc. and I only end up getting one toy in a package instead of four!


Zob (is it silly if I want to put my McDonald's Changeables on a shelf somewhere...?)
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