Landmine (G1)
| The name or term "Landmine" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Landmine (disambiguation). |
| This article is about the American Pretender. For his Japanese counterpart from Super-God Masterforce, see Lander. |
- Landmine is an Autobot Pretender from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Landmine prefers to believe his life is one big Indiana Jones movie. His job takes him into uncharted and dangerous territory, usually after some important artifact, and he's always willing to leap into these situations with sword or blaster in-hand. Unfortunately, the reality is his job isn't quite that glamorous. As an asteroid miner, he's usually after rare minerals his team needs to survive, not damsels in distress or powerful talismans. And while he is brash and hot-headed, unlike some other brash hotheads, he's very concerned about making sure he gets his job done right the first time around. Landmine doesn't brook mistakes, especially not his own. He rarely leaves his extremely durable shell, if he can help it. At the end of the day, he's just a vulnerable guy digging for rocks.
To fill the void, Landmine will keep rewatching those Indiana Jones films. Even the fourth one.
Fiction
The Transformers cartoon
Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Landmine was scheduled to undergo minor retooling. Optimus Prime promised he would be there. Season 5
Marvel Comics continuity
Marvel Generation 1 comics
Landmine claims at one point to have faced off against 50 Sharkticons. Recipe for Disaster!
A member of Fortress Maximus's crew aboard the Steelhaven, Landmine volunteered for the synthoplasmic conversion process Optimus Prime had stolen from Scorponok, transforming him into an Autobot Pretender. With Optimus Prime coordinating the Pretenders' first battle with the Decepticons, Landmine and his teammates easily overwhelmed the opposing force. Pretender to the Throne!
Landmine was with Fortress Maximus when the Steelhaven faction first met Grimlock's group of Autobots, and Fortress Maximus introduced Landmine to Grimlock as Pretender Group Leader. Totaled!
After a large number of Autobot troops were critically damaged battling Starscream, Optimus Prime sent Landmine and Cloudburst to buy medical supplies. They were to go to Grand Central Space Station and purchase 500 million microchips, necessary components for rebuilding their fallen comrades. The two Pretenders were chosen for the mission due to their outer human shells, as robots weren't welcome at Grand Central.
Canvassing the area at the Black Hole Bar and Grill, Landmine got them involved in a bar fight trying to defend a Chromite from some angry robophobic patrons. They were beaten, however, and the Chromite was tossed out the airlock. After Cloudburst smoothed things over with the bartender, J'oh, they left to find a reliable source of microchips. They supposedly found this through two brokers (the disguised Throttle and Hi-Test). The deal seemed sound, but a human named Berko mentioned how his Autobot friend Sky Lynx suddenly went missing after trying to deal with those the two brokers.
With the idea of saving a potentially endangered fellow Autobot in mind, Landmine insisted on bypassing the middlemen and meeting the sellers directly. Cloudburst was extremely reluctant, but not to worry — Landmine had a plan. Remote-guiding their two outer shells into the meeting, they met with the hungry Mecannibals. The disguised Autobots arranged to pay for 500 million microchips. However, they also learned that the Mecannibals were about to eat Sky Lynx. Landmine's inner robot burst in at that moment, assaulting the Mecannibals and freeing Sky Lynx. He then set off a flash of light to hide the moment when his robot mode entered his shell to hide.
Having successfully acquired their goods and freed a fellow Autobot in the process, Landmine and Cloudburst were sitting pretty. The only remaining glitch was how the hiding Sky Lynx would be able to return to Grand Central to retrieve his friend Berko without being caught. Fortunately, Landmine had a plan. A much less successful plan. He grabbed Berko by the collar and tossed him into an alleyway so that he and Cloudburst could reveal themselves as Autobots in privacy. It wasn't total privacy, though — the Mecannibals' brokers saw this revelation, and managed to deliver the two Autobots to their bosses. Guess Who the Mecannibals Are Having for Dinner?
Things weren't looking too well for them until Cloudburst managed to negotiate their release from the Mecannibals, in exchange for hunting down some rare crystals on the planet Femax. They found their entrance to the mountain kingdom being blocked by a solid steel door. Landmine had a plan, and — despite the nervous tic Cloudburst was starting to get every time he heard those words — they easily bypassed the door by having Landmine tunnel through the mountain itself using the astro-blasting power of his vehicle mode.
After Landmine and Cloudburst proved to the Femaxians their good intentions, skill in battle, and most importantly their ability to forgive and forget a beheading, they finally got ahold of the crystals they needed and returned to the Mecannibals' ship. In the end, however, their consciences got the best of them and they did not leave with the microchips as per the deal. Instead, the Pretenders insisted the Mecannibals rebuild the robots they had "recycled" into the microchips and raw materials they were selling. Their Autobot comrades simply wouldn't have wanted to be revived at the cost of others. Recipe for Disaster!
When the Air Strike Patrol terrorized MacDill Air Force Base, Optimus Prime took the full Autobot force down to confront them. Landmine was seen disembarking their All-Terrain Turbo-Transport Back from the Dead and standing behind Prime beside Cloudburst. When Scorponok's Decepticons arrived, accelerating the confrontation into an all-out battle, Landmine focused his efforts on Skullcruncher. The Resurrection Gambit! Prime ordered the Autobots back onto the ATTT to prevent further escalation, but Hot Rod disobeyed orders and returned to Prime's side as the ATTT left the ground, much to Landmine's frustration. All the Familiar Faces!
When the Autobots received a distress call from Earth's surface, Nightbeat assembled a combat team that included Hosehead, Siren, Landmine, Getaway, and himself. Under Optimus Prime's command, they rushed to Earth to help their fallen comrades, but there they found the Deathbringer, who had come to cleanse the planet of life. Landmine and the others fought valiantly, but were getting slaughtered. Nightbeat used its own programming against it, and the Deathbringer destroyed itself, removing Landmine and the others from further danger. Deathbringer
Sometime later, Landmine was the first Autobot to be deactivated battling Thunderwing and his newly-found power while possessing the Matrix. For a Transformer, that's like being literally struck down by the Hand of God, so it probably hurt A LOT. All Fall Down
Regeneration One
Template:Noterg1 More than twenty-one years after the end of the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, Landmine fell victim to Scorponok's Gene Key and tried to throw Grapple off a balcony. Natural Selection, Part Three He went on to join the party hunting down the rogue Dinobots Sludge, Snarl and Swoop. Natural Selection, Part Four
Dreamwave Generation One continuity
Landmine is Autobot Pretender leader. He and Scattershot must swap management policies sometime. Landmine's More Than Meets The Eye profile
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Landmine, Cloudburst, Groundbreaker, and Waverider were sent to investigate the Benzuli Expanse, but discovered that any probes or drones entering the area immediately ceased to function. After reporting this to Jetfire, he volunteered them for the Pretender process as a means of safely entering the expanse. Spotlight: Hardhead
Cyclonus was later patrolling the Benzuli Expanse with Galvatron to look for those who would disturb the Expansion. Upon spotting Cloudburst's ship, Cyclonus called "dibs" and Galvatron happily let Cyclonus attack the vessel. Spotlight: Doubledealer Fortunately Landmine and the rest of the crew were rescued by the Technobots who transported them to their ship and presented them with new and improved Pretender shells. Now equipped to deal with the Dead Universe and its denizens, the four warriors finished off Cyclonus and entered the Benzuli Expanse, where they put the Nega-Cores once they were sent so that they would detonate inside the Dead Universe and destroy it. Spotlight: Sideswipe
Following the end of the war, Landmine became a crew member on the Lost Light. He was hanging around in Shuttle Bay 3 when Ultra Magnus returned from a reconnaissance mission. Patternism
Toys
Generation 1
- Landmine (Pretender, 1988)
- Accessories: 2-piece Pretender shell, helmet, belt, "Laser Saber", "astro blaster"
- Landmine's outer Pretender shell resembles a human in a yellow and gray armoured space suit, armed with a gray sword and a gray blaster rifle. The shell's helmet and front-half of the belt are also removable, used to help "lock" the shell-halves together. This shell has very limited articulation, located in his shoulders.
- Landmine's inner robot has good articulation for the period he was released in, owing to his relatively simple transformation and design. The robot transforms into a predominantly gray Cybertronic all terrain vehicle. The gray rifle can be stored on the top of this mode.
- This mold — in exactly the same colors — was used for the Super-God Masterforce Pretender Lander.
Energon
- Landmine (Ultra, 2004)
- Japanese ID number: SC-15
- Accessories: Trailer/battle station/backpack & gauntlets, missile
- Energon Landmine transforms into an orange, blue, and grey Cybertronic half-track battlefield recovery vehicle. The front of the vehicle features a large plow while the rear has a rotating crane with a working winch, accompanied by a spring-loaded missile launcher. The front half of the vehicle can separate from the tracked portion as a smaller truck cab, and can transform into the standard robot. The tracked portion can then be reconfigured into a mini battle station that Landmine's robot mode can man. It can also be transformed into a small tank-like vehicle. Most of the crane is detachable, possibly for safety reasons, as it doesn't appear to attach anywhere else.
- In robot mode, Landmine has no weapons, but his standard 5mm fists can hold any Energon weapons or other weapons sporting a compatible peg system. In the dead center of his chest is his spark crystal, over which an energon star can be attached. As a red Powerlinx Autobot, Landmine cannot combine with any other Autobot except for the rear "trailer" half of his vehicle, forming his brute mode. The tracks, with their flip-out digger claws, mount on his arms while the remaining portion forms a weapons backpack. Connecting the backpack to Landmine will depress a button which activates the classic Generation 1 transformation sound effect.
- In the picture to the right, his robot-mode toes are mis-transformed. They should be rotated 180° so they can be pegged into his shins.
- The Japanese Superlink release removed the electronics from his brute mode backpack, and uses a different shade of blue plastic.
- The mold was later redecoed into "The Powerlinx Battles" Landquake and Timelines Landshark. This toy was also repurposed as Generation 1 Landmine in Spotlight: Trailcutter.
Notes
- Landmine/Lander's animation model shows up in the Armada cartoon as a "generic", unnamed Cybertronian. He is seen carrying a "clipboard" of some kind and reacting to the Mini-Con beacon. He's also the only one in that shot seen clearly, the other three (Streetwise, Wide Load and Sixknight) all being seen only from the back and largely obscured. First Encounter
- Landmine (or maybe Lander, we dunno) is on display at the Pop Century resort at Walt Disney World sans weapon and pretender shell.
Foreign names
- French: Sapeur (Canada)
- Italian: Febos
