The Best of The Rest

When it comes to toy purchases in 2014, I guess it’s no surprise that I didn’t just stick to my main three of Transformers, He-Man and G.I.Joe. I got married last year and after the wedding followed trips to Singapore, Hong Kong and the US with my wife. And of course that meant a whole bunch of toys to catch my attention and bore new holes into my wallet.

Cars Good, Jets Bad

When the Transformers story unfolded in 1984, there was an obvious line drawn in the sand on who the good and bad guys were. The good guy “Auto”-bots were all cars, and the bad guy Decepticons where everything else, but mostly jets, in the form of the seekers. While this clear differentiation was convenient to new fans, it didn’t take very long for Hasbro to realize that sticking to this basic classification system would soon seriously hamper their toyline’s marketability.

Still Looking Back At 2014

2014 was a big year for Transformers. It’s no surprise that of all the toys I got last year, Transformers came out on top in terms of quantity and money spent. Last year saw the release of the 4th Transformers Movie, The Age of Extinction. I didn’t really have high expectations for the accompanying toy line. In my opinion, the Transformers movie toys had been becoming worse with every movie so my expectations for the 4th movie line were quite low….

Looking Back at 2014

A couple years back, I started a little “tradition” wherein I would start a new year by counting down my top toy purchases of the past year. In 2012 I had my top 12, in 2013, my top 13. Now as much fun as I wad having with these lists, I came to the realization that at my current setup, I would be doing my top 25 in the year 2025 (which at the rate I’m going would be the year of my next blog entry after this).

It's Been Awhile...

Wow, it’s been almost a year since my last entry. For someone who planned to keep this blog active by writing a new entry at least once a week, I’ve been doing some major procrastinating. To be fair, a lot has happened since my last post. In a nutshell, I got MARRIED to an amazing person who thankfully shared my love for toys. We honeymooned in New York, just in time to attend New York Comic Con, and we finally moved into our new home where I set off to build a better toyshelf.

Oh Yeah! This Blog is Still About Toys....

Before the dudes from Hasbro came back from Japan with a bunch of robots they would repackage and sell to Americans as Transformers, there was the original Diaclone line. And one of the first “car robots” made for the line was this robot that Transformed into a slick modified Lamborghini. Being one of the first robot designs made pretty much explains why despite having a cool car mode, the robot mode pretty much sucks balls.

Every Single One of Them

Throughout the original cartoon and early Marvel and later Dreamwave comics, Sunstreaker wasn’t really featured much. He was usually overshadowed by his more popular team mates like Iron Hide, Prowl & Jazz, hell, thanks to the live action movies, even his twin brother Sideswipe has gotten more exposure. It doesn’t help being the same color as arguably one of THE most iconic Transformers, Bumblebee. I guess there is only room for ONE yellow Autobot.

They Can't Beat The Best!

My first “Transformer*” was a blue F-15 jet named Thundercracker. My friend who lived across the street had a red Lamborghini named Sideswipe. And every chance he got, he would remind me that according to this new Transformers cartoon his car was a good guy and my jet was a bad guy. And more than that, he kept rubbing it in that in the show our 2 robots actually had a run in where his guy “supposedly” shot my guy out of the sky.

More Logan Love?

One day I was listening to a podcast where the topic for the day was collecting action figures. The guest on the show was talking about his slow but gradual transition from a casual collector to a hard core collector. He went on to say that the number one sign that you have made the transition to hard core was when you start buying action figures of characters you despise. That made me think about my own collection and whether I had any action figures of characters I hated and almost immediately the numerous Wolverine figure on my Marvel Universe shelf came to mind….so yeah, I guess I am hard core.

Fred's Dead Baby, Fred's Dead

In 1986, Hasbro introduced one of the dumbest characters ever. Cloned from the DNA of history’s greatest rulers, conquerors and tacticians, Serpentor was created to be the ULTIMATE Cobra leader. Of course this meant nothing but bad news for the former leader, Cobra Commander who was relegated to comedy relief in the cartoons and well, exiled ex-leader in the comics.

FORE!

When it comes to the typical “group” or team in movies, comic books or cartoons, 4 seems to be the magic number. It’s not too little so that you get bored from seeing the same 1-3 characters all the time. And it’s not too much that each character’s personality shines through without having anyone overshadowed by anyone else. When it comes to toy collecting, one of the joys is being able to complete sets of characters. And teams of four are some of the easier and more satisfying sets to complete and display on the shelf. Here are some of my favorites.