SDCC Exclusive Transformers & G.I. Joe Bludgeon

I will admit up front, I know very little about Bludgeon and his place in the Transformers hierarchy, other than the fact that he's based on an old school Pretender, but a quick visit to TFWiki shows that not only is Bludgeon a pretty pervasive character throughout Transformers history, but he also has ties to the G.I. Joe mythology already, too.

Bludgeon was introduced as one of those goofy "Pretenders" in the vintage transformers line which essentially gave robots some barely articulated plastic shells over them rather than have them actually transform. Thanks to some clever comic writing, Bludgeon has managed to evolve way beyond that somewhat lackluster introduction and become a driving character throughout the entirety of the Transformers comic universe, which is an impressive feat to say the least. In G.I. Joe terms, that would be like taking the original Deep Six and turning him into one of the most popular and impactful characters throughout the original Real American Hero universe.

Not only as Bludgeon had a hand in nearly every generation of Transformers lore, but he was featured fairly heavily in the Devils' Due G.I. Joe vs. Transformers series back in the day...and that's pretty awesome. One might hypotosize the largest reason why he appears in this SDCC set is because they got a chance to re-use some Budo tooling, but that's cool with me. This figure looks pretty dynamite.

As mentioned, the majority of this figure is reused Budo tooling, which looks fantastic, but I have to admit, is tough for me to work into my pseudo-future hyper-military G.I. Joe aesthetic. But you know, in my more creative days, I think of some great bridges between the Transformers world and the G.I. Joe world, and Bludgeon fits in there exceedingly well, and makes for a nice and menacing foil in this particular ComicCon set as well.

Much of that menace is due to his excellent new head sculpt, going full on robotic-skeleton, which looks extremely cool. The layered samurai armor throughout the rest of the figure is so nicely detailed and sculpted, and seems to be applied on top of a 30th Storm Shadow base figure. The layered vest and cloak add great bulk, though the articulation is pretty limited due to the stacks of gear on top of this figure (the same would apply to Budo as well).

ACCESSORIES

Bludgeon comes with the same samurai armor, cloak, and swords that Budo comes with, but also has a newly sculpted helmet that more closely resembles his look in his various incarnations. I really dig the cybernetic skeleton head sculpt, and the helmet tops it off very nicely. As I've said, I'm not really a huge G.I. Joe/Transformers guy, but I could totally see Megatron sending Bludgeon through a space bridge to meet with Cobra Commander and decide to make their move on the G.I. Joe universe Earth. Bludgeon makes for a great liason with at least a little bit more of a human look to him.

The storyline of this series of ComicCon exclusives just barely floats in the background of these toys, certainly not explicitly defined or written, and that helps collectors build their own unique G.I. Joe and Transformers universe. In my eyes, the most important thing is that we have quality toys, and Bludgeon fits that mold. In fact I think I like him even more than Budo, to be honest. Budo is released as a component of a more straight military G.I. Joe universe, and doesn't really fit... Bludgeon goes with a whole hog fantasy universe where G.I. Joe vehicles transform into two-story robots, and I love him in that regard.

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