Yo Kreo!

If I really thought about it, I would have to say that Lego was my first real toy obsession. When I was a kid, my dad did a lot of travelling and when he would come home, he would never fail to bring home a nicely sized Lego set or 2 for me and my brother. I would spend hours building the sets according to the instructions, tear them down and then build my own creations. That was basically the “circle of life” for most of my Lego sets.

My Michonne

When it comes to the Walking Dead, I guess you could say I started out as a casual fan. I had never really heard of the comic book and my first taste of the series came with the TV show. I wouldn't say I’m a big fan of the zombie genre in general (although I have seen most of the big Hollywood zombie movies) and I decided to check out the series mainly because it was getting a lot of fanfare.

A Quick Explanation....

I know, it’s been quite some time since my last entry. While I have tried my best to keep a regular schedule with at least 4 entries a month, Stories from the Toyshelf remained largely unchanged for April and a big portion of May. Well don’t worry, I haven’t lost interest in this little blog of mine and my lack of any update is easily explained. I was out travelling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Occupational Hazard

Meet Jim, from a land called “various countries”. Ever since he was a little boy, Jim yearned for a life of adventure. He knew deep down in his heart he was destined for great things. So when the Cobra special forces recruitment wagon passed through his town he didn’t think twice and signed up to join their ranks. And eventually, after a few missteps and false starts within the Cobra organization, Jim finally found his true calling, that of a Cobra Hazard Viper!

An Airtight Gap in the Collection...

“It takes a mighty weird person to walk into a cloud of toxic gas strong enough to fell a mutant weight-lifter cockroach wearing a protective suit built under contract for the government by the lowest bidder. “

Cliff Notes

I’ve always believed that a main reason why the Transformers as a brand/franchise survived all these years is that from the very beginning they established good characters with distict and memorable personalities. Through every iteration you always had the heroic Prime and ruthless Megatron, but you also had in many cases more interesting secondary characters like the traitorous Starscream, the emotionless Soundwave, the underdog Bumblebee and the rough and gruff veteran Ironhide, the list goes on and on…..but one of my favorites will always be the delusional Cliffjumper.

Ex X-Men

The year was 1975 and the original X-Men weren’t doing very good. No, they weren’t getting their butts kicked by Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They were in bigger trouble, they weren’t selling very many comic books and were facing a fate even worse than defeat…they were facing cancellation.