G1 Waverider

Series: Generation 1
Year: 1988
Allegiance: Autobot
Class: Pretender
Function: Naval Warfare

Freedom for all starts with freedom of navigation.
A furious fighter and formidable adversary in battle. Prefers exploring the ocean bottom for buried treasure over warfare. Enjoys the "out-of-body" experience of working side-by-side with his humanoid shell. Without shell, transforms to aquatic sea-skimmer capable of diving to a depth of 25,000 feet! Armed for underwater combat with armored shell, energy-spear gun and a thermal broad-axe!

Prelude: Who wears a Pretender Shell under the Sea? Gee-One Di-ver! Well, Waverider, actually, but that’s one syllable too many for that song, so I went with his Takara name. Anyway, here we have Waverider, part of the first wave of Generation 1 Pretenders, back when no one yet knew how this gimmick would escalate. So he’s just a dude inside a dude, nothing more. So pack your swimming trunks and prepare for nautical nonsense. Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Let’s start with the outer Pretender shell. Like nearly all of the Autobot Pretenders, Waverider depicts a human wearing heavy battle armor. Waverider is from the first wave, so we only see the upper part of his human head, nothing more. He might wear a beard under there, who knows? He’s a blonde and his armor is mostly black and dark grey with a splash of red and gold across the belly. Like all Pretenders his articulation is limited to swiveling his arms at the shoulders, that’s it. He comes with a removable helmet and belt, plus two weapons, a black gun and a grey axe. I’m hard pressed to find anything that makes him stand out amongst the Autobot Pretenders, to be honest, and color wise he is possibly the most boring one.

Splitting open the shell reveals the robot inside who, I kid you not, is even more boring color-wise than the shell. Waverider’s robot mode is entirely black and light grey with very little detailing. His golden visor and some blue and red stickers are the only hints of color on his frame. Well, there is also the golden cockpit canopy on his back, too. Otherwise, though? Nearly uniform black and grey.

He is lanky and slim like most Pretender robots and shows little hint of what he transforms into. There is a turbine on the back of his head and the aforementioned cockpit on his back, but that’s it. Unlike most of the other Pretender robots, however, his articulation is limited. He can move his arms at the shoulders and his legs move sideways, only. That’s it. And while his leg articulation would enable him to pull off a sidekick pose, at least, his tiny little feet don’t support that, sadly. He can wield his black rifle, but not the axe in this mode.

So bottom line: a rather boring Pretender shell, containing a boring robot with limited articulation and nothing that makes him stand out in any way.

Alternate Mode: Like most Pretender robots, Waverider has a very basic transformation. He folds up his legs around his torso, folds up his arms, and flips in the head, done. The result is a so-called “aquatic sea-skimmer”, so… a boat. A submarine, to be precise, though it might as well be some kind of space jet or anything else that has a cockpit. Tiny little wings unfold from the legs on the side and the black gun is mounted on top. The only thing that really says “aquatic” is the turbine on the back of the head, which is now on the bottom rear of the boat. So bottom line: no more and no less impressive than any of the other early Pretender vehicle modes.

Remarks: As mentioned above, Waverider was part of the first wave of Pretenders in 1988 and was the “Sea” robot alongside Landmine’s “Land” and Cloudburst’s “Air” robots. He never appeared in the Western G1 cartoon, but had several comic book appearances in the Marvel and IDW runs. Nothing too fancy, though. He played a much bigger role in the Japanese Masterforce cartoon, where he was called Diver. The Pretenders took center stage in the first third or so of the series and Diver had some great scenes battling King Poseidon, but eventually he faded into the background to make room for the Godmasters.

Side note: poor Waverider is the only Autobot Pretender from the first wave who was not made into a Decoy Armor for the Prime Masters in Power of the Primes. I assume he was simply too boring.

Waverider, like most of the Autobot Pretenders, has one major problem: he is boring! The Decepticon Pretenders get to be cool monsters, at least, but the Autobots? Just generic white dudes in armor. And even among those, Waverider is probably the most boring one, having an armor that’s mostly black and grey and a robot mode that’s entirely black and grey. Sorry, but I struggle to find anything here to get excited about. So bottom line for Waverider: possibly the most average and most boring of the early Pretenders. No flaws that he doesn’t share with all the other Pretenders, but nothing to make him stand out, either. So, unless you’re a G1 completist or really in love with the Pretender gimmick, I wouldn’t bother with this one here.

Rating: C-