Swords and Spaceships

Here's the first wave of Hasbro's upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars line. These particular samples feature a sticker promoting the '1st day of issue' which I guess says to eBay sellers "BUY ME!" Mattel does the same thing with Hot Wheels. I, for one, will skip figures with that sticker, since buying ones without it will mean better figures once the kinks get worked out. The more I see these, the more I want to buy them. I really dug the animated line Hasbro did in 2004, and I see these as an extention of that. I just opened my set of Droid Factory sets, and I'm really tired of repaints of toys I bought one or two years ago. I suppose if I just bought one a week, I could get them all over two months. These are brand new, and looking great. I love the Yoda, the Clone Trooper, Grievous, and the Battle Droid. I should probably mail my Captian Rex thingy in while I'm thinking about it.

Yes. I've been waiting for a Mola Ram since the line started. You know, there simply aren't enough toys with flaming disembodied human organs as accessories.

Most GI Joe fans here on the interwebs look down on the 1986 and after lines. '86 was the year I came into GI Joe, so figures from that year always held a special place in my geeky heart- Wet Suit, Serpentor, Low Light, Beach Head, and the BAT are my favorite figures in the line. There was a second version of Roadblock that year, and this new release from Hasbro pays homage to that with this repaint. Besides the Cobra Commander from this new wave, I see Roadblock the most. It's really a shame. Sure, he's just a repaint of the not-great 25th Anniversary Roadblock, this time with a neon green vest, but I guess it's a symptom of him being a less-popular version in a line that now costs $7 a single figure. Hasbro gave him a new gun, though it's nowhere near as intimidating as the Ma Deuce the previous version carried. He does NOT have the helmet pictured here. Buying this figure is dependent on your favorite 'era' of Joe. 1982-'85 or '86-89. I'm in

I picked up my first sample from the Transformers: Animated line last week. I had heard lots of praise for these toys, even from die-hard G1 guys I know. I decided to take a $10 chance with Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime, a Deluxe-sized toy. Yes, I'm impressed too. I was not impressed with the Animated design aesthetic when I first saw it. My reaction was much the same when I saw the movie designs. But, these designs, as toys, are such a breath of fresh air. They are far more innovative than the movie toys, not to mention much more functional. You can transform Prime here once or twice and remember it, unlike the movie toys where you better never lose the instructions. This particular model isn't the same as the Voyager class. I don't know what it's all about, since I've never seen an episode of the cartoon. I don't think this truck looks all that convincing. However, the 'bot mode is a lot of fun. This Prime doesn't feature a gun as his main weapon, inste

Here it is, the one figure from wave 8 that everyone thought they wanted. Thought they wanted, until early word got out that "Bludd sucks!" Of course, toy fans on the interwebs are easily given to hyperbole. Major Bludd is nowhere near as bad of a toy as you'd been led to believe. Yes, I don't disagree that the Flash body mold probably would have been better, but would you believe that the Zartan body works better for Bludd than it did Zartan? The armor works better for the first mercenary to work for Cobra, especially since he was on the battlefield in the cartoon. The stolen dog tags didn't look to great in some reviews I've seen for this figure, but those can be pushed down the neck and made to look a lot better than the way they sit on the figure in the package. The right arm, whether it's armor to protect his arm from his rocket-firing handgun or a completely bionic arm, doesn't have any elbow articulation. But, if you were a good, knowledgeable,

That's what she said. Yes, the Star Wars Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon has been found and purchased at retail. Retail in Canada, anyway. Hell, for all we know, they're in the backroom of your local USA Toys R Us, waiting for the July 26th launch. After seeing the comparison between that and the original Falcon toy, I've come to realize there's no fucking way I can buy this. $150 really isn't a lot of money for what we're getting here (especially when you consider the $4-a-gallon gas these days), but it's just that I can't possibly put this thing anywhere. That thing is the size of a coffee table, and my apartment has no room for one of those. Plus, I have the 1995 POTF2 and 2004 OTC Falcons. Redundant doesn't even begin to describe this purchase. I wish I could say I could buy the AT-TE that comes out the same day, but I run into the same situation. However, both of those toys are masterpieces, and it's great to see Hasbro take big, big ris

This weekend, I managed to find the rest of GI Joe wave 8- Roadblock, Major Bludd, Baroness, Cobra Commander, Python Patrol Officer, and this one, Tiger Force Flint. This guy seems to be the most in-demand figure from this wave. I've only seen the one I own, while seeing all his casemates at least three times now. Of course, after the extreme disappointment that was the wave 1 Flint (whether you found him or not) people were looking forward to this one. This figure rights the wrong Hasbro did by using the dreaded Duke arms on the the first version of Flint, which, while the hands lacked gloves, were completely incapable of bending to a 90 degree angle. While I have lots of toys without elbow atriculation, the fact that a modern-designed GI Joe couldn't bend his elbows while a 25-year-old version could was ridiculous, I felt. This version of Flint not only has the gloves, but functional elbows as well. Functional, that is, if the elbows on your sample actually move. The right el

A gallery of Transformers movie Leader Optimus Prime from Takara Man, this is a thing of beauty. If I hadn't already dropped $40 on the first version of Hasbro's Leader Prime, I might have saved for this one.

Cobra BAT pics! Look out, local toy fans. I'm buying the hell out of these guys.

I found some of GI joe wave 8 on Friday. Alas, Tiger Force Flint and Roadblock as well as Major Bludd were already gone, but that happens when there's only one case of eight figures with one of each in every case every month. I did get my hands on Arctic Trooper Snake Eyes, which was one of the figures I was looking for. I left the two Python Officers, the Baroness, and the Cobra Commander from this wave, as I really couldn't afford such lameness. First, the packaging. Gone are the foil accents in place of the white on the front of the card. I wasn't sure how it would look once I actually found these new cards, but it looks much better. In my opinion, it looks more like the vintage cards this way. Now, if they'd really go nutty and change the explosion background from the fireball to the digital pattern seen on the 1986-1989 lines, that'd be pretty neat too, but not necessary. Gone also is the 25th Anniversary logo, replaced with a blurb about where the figure came