Remembering The North

Way back when I was in high school, I was going through the first issue of the Marvel Universe Handbook Book of the Dead series and one character immediately caught my attention. His name was Guardian and I thought that his simple red and white costume based on the Canadian flag looked pretty cool. So I proceeded to read his entry and that is how I recall being officially introduced to Canada’s premiere superhero team Alpha Flight.

The Best Of 2019: Third Quarter part 2

So now it’s time for the main event as we close out the third quarter of 2019. Despite a good number of honorary mentions in my last post, none of them were quite good enough to crack my ongoing top ten list. But as I mentioned before, August was a big month for me in terms of new acquisitions. As a result, there are quite a lot of changes for the current top ten of the year.

The Best Of 2019: Third Quarter part 1

So it’s that time of year again to revisit my ongoing list of top ten toys for 2019. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I really mean it when I say this quarter, specifically the month of August yielded the biggest toy haul for me in quite some time. It was really the perfect storm as a combination of preorders I was expecting in July arrived late and even more pre orders that I was expecting in October arrived early. So with so many new arrivals, there will definitely be changes in my ongoing top ten list for this quarter.

Gang Hang Style

With Jabba’s throne and carbonite chamber environment done, I set off to do the final elements of my Hutt palace diorama which were comprised of the main arched back wall, the steps on both sides of the throne and a main background piece to add a little more depth and cohesion to all the separate elements of the display.

A Smuggler On Ice

Next to his throne, possibly one of the most important elements of a Jabba’s palace diorama would have to be the carbonite chamber environment. This was the place were Jabba hung one of his most prized trophies for all to see, the frozen body of the smuggler who had been a constant thorn in his side, Han Solo.

A Throne Fit For A Slug

In 2014, Hasbro released literally the biggest figure up to that point for their Black Series line, one of the most notorious crime lords in the Star Wars galaxy, Jabba the Hutt. At the time of his release, I wasn’t completely all in on the line and was quite happy merely cherry picking my favorites. Although many would consider him a major character from the original trilogy, I wasn’t that big of a fan so he was an easy pass for me.

An Ewok-ening

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, toy collecting is a very slippery slope. It’s happened to me so many times wherein a single innocent and random purchase has led to me falling into yet another collecting rabbit hole. Such was the case when I bought my first modern ewok way back in 2012. This led to me buying even more ewoks to keep the first one company. The next logical step of course was to get myself an ewok village to house all my ewoks. Naturally, with the village came the need to spruce it up with a “golden idol” for the ewoks to worship, a couple of rebels to roast over the fires, a princess and of course an imperial speeder bike and AT-ST for them to commandeer. It’s a slippery slope indeed.

Better After Broken

Nothing breaks a child’s heart like a broken toy.

Growing up in the die-cast robot boom of the 70s and 80s, I’ve had my share of invincible Earth-saviors get snapped somewhere along their plastic parts, often dealing a fatal blow to its play value. A snapped joint, a cracked panel, a detached head, anything that adversely affected the toy’s function was just too painful to look at. You could spend the whole day looking for a missing accessory or an “oh-no-where-did-it-go?” rocket punch; but a broken toy is its own circle of hell. I don’t know about you, but every time I broke a toy, I could feel its angry eyes burning into my soul just how carelessly stupid I was. Sorry about your windshield and roof, Transformers Gen 1 Bluestreak. Sorry about your leg Orguss Nikick. Sorry to all the toys I broke before, that I couldn’t do then what I could do now.

Doctor Lui Lui Lui

One morning, while waiting for my wife to finish up in the bathroom, I decided to kill some time and fiddle with my latest toy purchase. So I walked over to the shelf and grabbed my KFC King Gorilla to play around with. For someone who has been collecting Transformers for over 10 years, randomly transforming them from robot to vehicle and back shouldn’t be such a big deal. Unfortunately, when it comes to quality and stability, especially with 3rd party Transformers, not all toys are created equal.

The Best Of 2019: Second Quarter

So it’s that time of year again to revisit my ongoing top ten toys for 2019. Admittedly, there weren’t too many major toy acquisitions during the start of the year, which led to a relatively weak first quarter list. This second quarter though has brought in quite a lot of good stuff. So let's see how much my top ten has changed after three more months.

It's Evolution, Baby!

So it’s been awhile since my last blog post. Almost 2 months. While I try my best to keep my blog regularly updated every month, I suppose writer’s fatigue is inevitable at some point. And for me it came this year. It’s also not coincidental that this block came at the same time as a major life event happened for me last month as well, which was the birth of my second child. And as anyone who’s had kids can attest to, with all the excitement and fanfare of having a new baby also comes endless sleepless nights and poopy diapers. Given that, it seemed like the perfect moment to step back and take a quick break from the storytelling.