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.

Building a Better Man (At-Arms)

During the first official year of the Master of the Universe Classics toy line, a new Man-At-Arms figure was pretty much expected. The only question was exactly which version of Duncan would we end up getting.  Vintage?  Filmation? 2002? or something completely different?

Duncan Donuts

When I got my first two Masters of the Universe figures, I did what every kid instinctively does when he gets a new toy, look at the back of the packaging to see what other figures were available in the line. Unsurprisingly, my eyes didn’t navigate to the scantily clad muscle man in furry briefs and instead focused on the guy next to him.

Twelve for Twelve...Point Two

I’m back with the second installment of my Twelve for Twelve. This is where it gets a little tricky as a waffled back and forth with the placement order of the final three or four entries. I also wasn't quite sure if a couple of toys I was set on placing on this list were actually bought in 2012 so in the end I decided to just leave them out. Oh and in case some people may be wondering, a bunch of these entries aren't actually individual toys but a groups or pairs. I decided not to be so strict with that…anyway my list, my rules and all that…Anyway so let’s continue with the countdown shall we?

Twelve for Twelve....Point One

My original intention was to finish off December with one more Ewok entry…unfortunately, the holidays got in the way and before I knew it, December was over. I’ll eventually get to that last Ewok entry but in the meantime, I figured I’d do what many bloggers do or have done to properly cap off their 2012. At the end of every year, It seems almost obligatory and expected to look back at the year and recall all the significant events that happened. So I’d like to join the trend and present to you my top 12 toy purchases of 2012.

Village Ewoks

As my ewok collection started growing, I started thinking of ways to properly display them. I thought about getting them a vintage ewok playset and headed over to eBay just to see exactly how much those playsets were going for. The average going rate for a second hand complete set turned out to be more than I was willing to spend, about a 100 dollars or even more if it included the original box. So I left it at that. Until I came upon this one auction that was ending in a few hours, whose current bid was around 20 dollars. I figured what the hell? I placed a max bid of $50 and went to bed thinking I’d never win…..then the next morning received a pleasant surprise….turned out $50 was just right…I won.

Ewok To Remember

Since I got the ball rolling in my last entry, I have decided to keep it rolling by dedicating the whole month of December to writing about my favourite posse from the Star Wars Universe, the Ewoks. As you may have guessed, Wicket didn’t remain the only ewok on my toy shelf for long. Since their debut in ROTJ, and after two straight-to-television ewok movies and a cartoon, quite a number of other ewoks not named wicket have been introduced and “immortalized” in toy form. And towards the later part of 2012, as I have rekindled my love for these little furry dudes, I have tracked down & purchased as many “modern sculpted” ewoks as I could find to add to my ever growing collection.

Something Wicket This Way Comes

Return of the Jedi usually doesn’t come out on top when it comes to people’s ranking of Star Wars movies. There would be a lot who would say that of the 3 original films, it is clearly the weakest. I for one would never rank it above The Empire Strikes Back, but against A New Hope, it’s really a toss-up for me.