Monday, March 25, 2013

Baby You're a Firefly

1984 will always be known by G.I.Joe fans as the year when one of the most famous and iconic Cobra characters was introduced. Storm Shadow turned out to be a homerun for Hasbro as apparently EVERYBODY loves a ninja. For me however, I actually prefer another Cobra character that also made his debut the same year. He didn’t reach the same heights of popularity as Stormy or even the Baroness & Zartan also introduced that year but he has managed to maintain a low key cult following, which based on his speciality seems quite appropriate.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

What The Puck???

When you go through the rosters on most classic superhero teams, you will find that many of them share characters with either similar personalities or powers. Most of them have your token “big” or strong guy, a speedster, a water guy, maybe someone mystical, a god and of course a leader who’s either draped in a flag or at least has the personality of a boy scout. That’s one of the reasons why Canada’s own Alpha Flight has always been one of my favourite superhero teams of all time. Although they have all the usual suspects on their roster, Sasquatch (strong guy), Northstar (speedster), Marinna (water girl), Shaman (mystic), Snowbird (demi-god), Guardian (leader draped in the Canadian flag) they also have something that most teams don’t have…and that’s Puck.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Fear of Offending Asians...

I don’t really know what it is that makes me gravitate towards the more obscure characters in a toyline. For some reason I just find them infinitely more interesting than the more popular ones. Or maybe it’s because we hardly know anything about them that it leaves more to the imagination, making them more your character to do as you would. When it comes to Masters of the Universe main vintage line (I don’t count the last minute characters thrown in towards the end of the line), no one comes more obscure than Jitsu.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Springer Awakening

What’s better than a robot that could transform into an alternate mode? Why, a robot that could transform into TWO alternate modes of course! This is eactly what the Transformers guys thought of coming into the 3rd year of the toyline. So in 1985, the new Transformer “triple-changer” concept was born! The concept turned out to be quite a hit despite the fact that limited technology (and creativity?) actually just delivered another “brick” that transformed into 2 different looking bricks.