A Fondness for Male Sheep

One of the main reasons why the original He-Man & The Masters of the Universe toy line was so successful was because of the relatively resourceful method they employed for making toys for all their numerous characters. Two words: Shared Parts. Look at almost every Masters figure and you will notice that almost 90% of them share the same crotch/furry underwear piece. Over 90% have the same body structure. And when it comes to arms, feet and so on, you will usually find only a few variations of each scattered amongst hundreds of figures. More often than not, the only unique items each character would have were their head sculpts, armor and weapons, and even a good number of those were used at least more than once!

Hawking It Up To Nostalgia

When I first decided to go all out on collecting the 25th Anniversary G.I.Joes way back in 2009, I gave myself ONE restriction. I told myself that I would collect whatever figures I wanted from the toy line BUT I would stay away from getting any vehicles. My reasoning was simple, first, I wanted to keep my toy spending down (yeah right!) and second, I literally didn't have much display space for larger scale toys. Four years later, Joes have remained a major part of my collection and for the most part, I have managed to follow my self-imposed rule. Every now and then I would find myself getting a smaller scaled vehicle (like a motorcycle or a single manned cannon) in order to get a particular figure that came packed with it. But yeah, I managed to stay away from anything bigger. That is until this year when the bastards at Hasbro decided to release this baby….

The Perfect (Sand)Storm

In 2013, Hasbro released a proper modern update to the Transformer Springer. Unlike the past “updates” to the original G1 toy, this wasn’t just a simple repaint of another character. This was a true triple changing Springer with all three modes nicely executed. But more importantly, it was an all-new design that wasn’t previously used for an older character. This was 100% all Springer. Or so we thought….

Everybody Loves Logan...

Except me. Ok wait let me re-phrase that, if I really thought about it I don’t really hate Wolverine the character per se. I do believe he plays an important role in the Marvel Universe. I mean who wouldn’t love a troubled hero with the mysterious past who although at times is prone to fits of animalistic rage and goes totally berzerk ultimately has a heart of gold that everyone can identify with (cue violin music).

Alpha Bits Too

Next up is box set #2 with Northstar’s sister Aurora leading the way. As I mentioned earlier, she possesses similar speed and flight abilities like her brother, unfortunately she also suffers from a bad case of split personally disorder, which ironically makes her character all that more interesting.

Alpha Bits

When I was in New York, I came upon a cool toy/hobby shop called the Forbidden Planet. While I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, as always, something managed to catch my attention….

A Mini Introduction...

What do you get when you cross an action figure with a minifigure? OK OK so there really isn't a definitive answer to that question, but if you've ever gotten your hands on a minimate before then I’m pretty sure you’d agree that this is as close as its gonna get to an action+mini figure offspring.

Making The K'nex-tion

It was sometime last year when my girlfriend and I really got into collecting minifigures. Since then we have put together her collection of Lego minifigures which now has been updated all the way up to series 10. So just as I thought I had seen all the minifigures there were to see, one day I came across a delightful surprise while checking out the toy aisle at Target, while visiting my sister in New York….

Ice Ice Berg

The 1986 line of G.I.Joe will always be fondly remembered by collectors. For starters, it was the year that both Sgt. Slaughter and the Fridge joined the Joe ranks. But more importantly in my opinion, it was also the last line of Joes to be heavily featured in the much loved Sunbow produced cartoon, which also got cancelled that year. Given this, I find it ironic that at the end of the 25th anniversary toyline, many of the more popular 1986 joes were left without any modern updates.

The Rainbow Collection

When writer Geoff Johns introduced the concept of the “other” colored lanterns, that basically meant one thing for toy collectors like myself….MORE TOYS. Now while I couldn’t really afford to start collecting yet ANOTHER toyline, I figured putting together a little set of figures with each color being represented by one member wouldn’t hurt my wallet TOO much. So this exactly what I set out to do....

What Happens When You Open a Bag of Nips?

In 2004, comic book writer Geoff Johns almost single-handedly saved the Green Lantern comic which was at that point languishing in second tier obscurity, constantly being overshadowed by the DC big three, Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman. Through the years, his expert writing introduced many memorable story arcs and new characters that propelled the whole Green Lantern character and mythos to epic levels.