The Toys Of Christmas Past

Putting aside the true meaning of Christmas, over the years, for many adults like myself, the excitement over the Holidays is oftentimes overshadowed by endless duties like shopping for gifts and attending family gatherings. While ultimately all these are blessings in themselves, they can get rather exhausting. But for most kids, Christmas is definitely the highlight of the year for one simple reason they get gifts! And to be more specific, toys! So with that in mind, I thought that it would be a worthwhile exercise for me to end the year with a post reminiscing and recalling all my favorite Christmas gifts I received as a kid all those years ago

Bladder Busters!

When the original Ghostbusters movie came out in 1984, it barely made a blip on my interest radar. I do remember my older siblings trying to sell me on this movie about ghosts but I was distracted by my Transformers and G.I.Joes to really care too much. I’m not exactly sure when I finally watched the movie but it was definitely years later when it was available on home video. And while I did like the movie overall, a lot of the more adult centric humor really flew over my head and so it didn’t make too much of a lasting impression on me.

A Revealing Agenda

When the first part of Masters of the Universe Revelations show made its debut on Netflix back in July, it elicited such a split reaction from the fandom. And while I never intended for my blog to be about reactions and reviews, I felt the need to chime in with my own thoughts on the show. Not that my opinion carried any weight in the overall fandom, it was just a personal exercise for me to process how I felt about the show.

Be Legendary

As a kid with a very limited weekly allowance, the only toys I collected on a large scale were Star Wars and G.I.Joe action figures. At 3.75” in height, these guys were more affordable than say a Transformer or He-Man figure. I got my fix for those more expensive toys through birthday and Christmas gifts. So yeah for the longest time these 3.75” dudes were my jam.

The End Of A Universe

In 2010, I was working as a web designer in Singapore. Before I made my move to the Lion City the year prior, I was basically just a Transformers collector. But being in Singapore with a fairly decent paying job opened me up to delving into more toy lines. I had already recently fallen for the G.I.Joe 25th Anniversary line, and I was about to fall HARD for yet another one.

The New Collecting Normal

I remember it quite clearly, it was Thursday March 6, 2020 and I was sitting in my office looking forward to the weekend. As usual, I had plans to go to Manila’s toy mecca, Greenhills shopping center to pick up some pre orders that arrived and just make my rounds to see what else was there. And then the news broke that the first positive COVID case was identified from a man who was known to have regularly visited a Musilm prayer hall in.you guessed it, Greenhills.

The Best Of 2021: Third Quarter

Amazing how time flies when you’re having fun. At this point we’re closer to the end of the year than the start and before long I’ll be finalizing my top ten list for 2021. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves as we have another quarter of new toys to integrate into my ever changing list. So let's see what new plastic goodness the last three months have brought to the shelf.

The Bruticus Wars Part 2: A Collector’s Dilemma

In 2017, two 3rd party companies battled it out on who would make the better Bruticus. Both companies seemed to be taking different approaches to their sets. Unique Toys focused more on aesthetically superior individual Combaticon, while Zeta Toys was banking on their larger and more solid combined mode. And as impressed as I was with Zeta’s Bruticus, at the end of the day, I decided to go with Unique Toys.

The Bruticus Wars Part 1: It’s All In The Hips

Due to the finite number of “G1” characters out there vs the infinite number of companies in the world of 3rd party Transformers, it’s not uncommon to have multiple versions of the same character all competing for our money at the same time. For many collectors, these are fondly referred to as the “(insert character's name) wars”. While for the most part, this wealth of options is a great thing, for those with a more limited budget this basically means a lot of careful discernment and self rationalization to defend to ourselves the choices that we ultimately make.

Back In Black

Back in the 90’s grim and gritty heroes such as the Punisher and Wolverine rose in popularity in the comic book world. As such, writers of more traditional heroes like Superman and Captain America were being pushed to follow suit in order to “keep up” with the times. Fortunately, the late great Mark Gruenwald, who at the time was writing the Captain America series didn’t buckle to the pressure and instead came up with an effective solution to his problem.

Cap No More

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier may not be the best MCU based series released on Disney+ to date. But for all its faults and shortcomings, what it does have in my opinion is one of the most unforgettable moments in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. And no I am not referring to the debut of Sam Wilson as the new Captain America.