Swords and Spaceships

Picked up this bad boy a few weeks ago at Target. It's the Doom Cycle w/ Storm Rider from the new GI Joe: Pursuit of Cobra line. I like it. It's a new Dreadnok, which are few and far between, and he has a great look to him. The bike, however, is a little on the big side. I suppose it's a little big for safety and durability reasons, so I guess I can let that slide. It does look pretty intimidating, what with its size and pop-out blades and shotguns. The Dreadnoks are something I thought was missing from the GI Joe movie, so it's kind of nice to see them represented here. I also like it because back in the day, when the Dreadnoks made their debut in the line and cartoon, my mom would never let me have any of the toys, because she thought they were 'white trash.' At 29, I don't disagree with her, and the whole chocolate donuts and grape soda were obvious euphemisms I didn't get at the time, but now I make my own money so I can buy my trashy action figures....

haha, hyperbole. Finally got my hands on GI Joe: Pursuit of Cobra wave 1. Man, are they great. I skipped Storm Shadow, so I won't be telling you about him. But the rest, well, here we go: Beachhead seems to be my favorite. There's a lot of elements that let you know it's Beachhead, but there's a few subtle changes. For one, the color palette on this particular wave of figures is muted, an attempt to make them look realistic, I suppose. It works quite well. The camo pants and green sweater are much darker than earlier modern-era Beachheads, and I think it looks fantastic. He also has this tac vest that has to be seen to be believed. There is a drawback to this figure, unfortunately. He has so many guns that have no place to go. I guess it was a choice for Hasbro between the vest and an arsenal of weapons, or a back pack and a few weapons. I have to admit I like it this way. Also, he seems to be missing a knife that would fit into the sheath on his back. It's not a bi...

I really, really, REALLY wanted to buy one of these this week, but apparently, they're all gone. Every stinkin' one of them. For those of you not in the know, this is Sgt. Slaughter, a fine new release in the modern GI Joe line from Hasbro. Of course, I've had trouble getting all the San Diego Comic Con GI Joe exclusives, so the fact that I didn't get this one isn't all that surprising. As always, it pays to wait, especially since this dude will set me back $50 on ebay, and that's just for this version. If I wanted the other to go with it (which I kinda do) it'd cost me $100 for the set. That's too much money, obviously. I'll probably just content myself with buying a vintage Slaughter for my shelf, and waiting for the price on these to come down a little bit. I think it's pretty unlikely Hasbro will make any more of these, and they're never going to tell you either way, so I'll just have to grin and bear it. Oh yeah, and content myself w...

Seriously. $3 25th Anniversary GI Joes? I can't even begin to tell you how many I've bought, because I've lost count. I do know I've purchased 8 Battle Android Troopers, or BATs, if you will. Hey, I'm driving into the ghetto to get to these stores, and I've left that many behind by now, so piss off. It's great to buy so many Joes at the price they were in the 1980s. Which makes me kind of sick that I paid $27 for a loose 1985 Shipwreck last week, but hey, it was my birthday present to myself. So anyway, hit those Family Dollar stores, team. I've been mostly shut out of the cheap-Joes-at-discount-stores fun, so I went a little nuts, but now I have a small army (OK, fifteen) of those legendary Cobra BATs, and you could possibly have that too, that is, if you care. Depending on your store, you can get Battle Armor Cobra Commander, Tripwire, Ripper, Snow Serpent, Mutt & Junkyard, Wraith, and Bazooka. Also, hit your local Target if you're looking for ...

I'm going to own one of these.

Have you ever encountered something that, until you saw it, you didn't know you needed to see and couldn't possibly go back to your old life after having seen it? This, friends, is one of those times. Super Mario Crossover Play the original Super Mario Bros. game with Mario, Mega Man, Link, Samus Aran, Simon Belmont, or the guy with blue pants from Contra. This game is crazy fun. I just wish I could find I way to use an old NES controller with my computer, so I could beat this game. I suck with the keyboard controls, but I never was a PC gamer. So, check it out. Bask in its 8-bit brillance.

I’ve kind of thrown myself full-bore into GI Joe collecting lately. I always told myself that I’d collect GI Joe if I wasn’t collecting Star Wars toys, and since I became officially bored of that, I decided to finally do what I always wanted and have those kick-ass Joes and Cobras my seven year old self always wanted. In a lot of ways, I was closer to GI Joe as a kid than anything else. Star Wars was of course there, as were Transformers, and I’ve pretty much purchased everything I wanted from those lines. However, Joe and He-Man, not so much. So here we are. I received this vintage vehicle this week, and man, is it fantastic. The HAVOC featured heavily in the second season of the cartoon as well as the movie, and it’s easy to see why- it can hold a lot of figures, it has big guns, and it features a little one-man hovercraft that can lift off the back, so it’s like getting two vehicles for the price of one. Plus, it came with Cross Country, who as far as vehicle drivers went, actually ...

I was one of the few MOTU fans who was lucky enough to score both Trap Jaw and Battle Cat from the MOTUC line from mattycollector.com last month. How are they? They kick more ass than I ever thought possible. Firstly, let's look at Trap Jaw. Trappy here was one of those guys I always wanted when I was a kid, but never found him, for some reason. It wasn't until I was an adult (more or less) that I acquired one. His 200x toy was my favorite figure in that line, and that is again true with this new version. Trap Jaw moves in all the right places, has all his original attachments for his right arm (claw, hook, and laser gun) as well as some new pieces from his 200x incarnation. Those are a new head and a non-mechanical right arm, which was his appearance before Skeletor pwned his ass and left him for dead. According to his bio that appears on the back of the card, Tri-Klops rebuilt Kronis into Trap Jaw, and now the broken zombie man serves Skeletor, forever his bitch. Kinda sucks...

Last-ditch effort I've made mention here (several times) about my increasing disinterest in Star Wars toys, and after seeing these cards they're using for packaging, it's obvious I'm not the only one who feels this way. Line failing? Run those things out on 'vintage' packaging! Five years ago, I'd have been absolutely batshit insane over this, but now, I don't know what happened. I've been collecting this line for like fifteen years, and I'm bored as shit with it. I've contemplated purging almost all of it, for instance. Part of me just wants the SW stuff gone. It's not that I don't enjoy Star Wars anymore, it's just there's too much shit, and I'm loathe to add more to it, even if it is on packaging reminiscent of what I bought as a kid. I did that with GI Joe a few years ago, but those were like $5, whereas these SW toys this year are $8. And then there's buying two of each, and it's no wonder I'm thinking ...

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner Admits Rise Of Cobra Toys Were Overpriced And Speaks On The Future Yes, yes they were. Though I can't complain. I picked up most of the line on clearance. These were all very neat toys; I think they're the best, most unique Joes Hasbro has produced since 1990. Had the missile launchers and other gaudy accessories packed with the figures been dropped, and the price kept closer to $7, they might have had better luck. As it is, there's no new Joe stuff till the end of 2010, and it's really unclear how heavily the retailers will buy into the Pursuit of Cobra line, which looks damn fantastic. By the way, I just bought this figure on ebay since I couldn't hold my wad until September. So, in three or four weeks, I'll tell you what I thought of this guy, aptly titled Arctic Threat Snow Job.

I was really looking forward to this particular Masters of the Universe Classics figure. While it's OK, it's really left me cold. This is Battle Armor He-Man. The Battle Armor version was the only version of He-Man I had back in the day. I got him in a rare giftset with Battle Cat. That figure saw much playtime until his arm broke off at the shoulder, taking the piece that connects the arm to the body with it. (If you've ever taken an arm off a vintage MOTU figure, you'll know what I'm talking about.) However, a short time later, I came across one at a garage sale (the same one I got Zodac at) for 50 cents, and even though this BA He-Man had white-out on his feet for some reason (and still does to this day) it was easier than trying to find a new He-Man in the wilds of 1980s retail, which I can tell you wasn't an easy task. Battle Armor He-Man, along with its counterpart, Battle Armor Skeletor, are legendary toys. If you were to meet anyone who has seen or playe...

Picked up this fine figure on ebay for my Christmas gift to myself. I find it's probably my favorite figure in the line so far. This is the Masters of the Universe Classics Tri-Klops. I received the original version of Tri-Klops for Christmas in 1984, and it was obviously a wonderful gift. It's one of the few figures I managed to keep complete, though he only had the longsword as an accessory, so it was pretty easy. I of course lost the minicomic, and I'm pretty sure my original figure didn't come with the warrior ring. So therefore, complete. Trike here was one of my favorite figures. As one of Skeletor's lackeys, he was always battling He-Man in a swordfight while Skeletor did his thing, trying to take over Castle Grayskull. Mattel and the Four Horsemen were wise in keeping everything that made the original toy so great, yet adding little details that make this a truly modern action figure. It moves in all the places it should, though the ankles on my sample are ...

Here it is- that which is assumed to be the pinnacle of the Rise of Cobra tie-in line. And it's based on a design seen not in the movie, but the animation GI Joe: Resolute. Hasbro basically ran out of time to release all the Resolute figures they had designed before the movie stuff came out, so they've gone with the only option left to them: pepper the line with a few of them. (For instance, Roadblock was recently released in a Wal-Mart exclusive set called Outpost Defender.) Is this Snake Eyes worthy of all the hype? Sure, Snake Eyes kicked a lot of ass in the animation, and this figure looks spot-on to that design. The traditional visor was done away with, which I like to see. And the figure isn't all black, which is another plus. You have optional sword placement as well- you can place it high on his back, or lower at the waist, as seen in the animation. The figure features a nice selection of guns, fitting the commando part of the Snake Eyes equation. There's a larg...

I've purchased a lot of GI Joes in the last couple of months. Thanks to prices that are 30-40% cheaper than this summer, I bought all the figures I wanted for a tidy price of $5-6 each. One of those was this fellow here, Duke in the Delta-6 Accelerator Suit. A lot of GI Joe fans who saw these in the trailers didn't like them, and matters weren't helped any when, on the DVD/Blu-Ray special features, the director of the film Stephen Sommers basically admitted to putting the Delta-6 suit in the film to satisfy his own ambitions from a failed 25 year old script about a super suit that did pretty much exactly what these suits did in the Joe flick. I really liked the idea of such a suit, especially growing up as a fan of the old Sunbow GI Joe cartoon. I was glad to see some tech for the Joes that wasn't another damn box with a beam emitter. This 3.75" figure recreates the look of that suit fairly well. Hasbro are kings of this scale, and there's lots of sculpted deta...

Ah, yes. Scare Glow here is one of the figures I was wishing for when Masters of the Universe Classics began, and less than a year into the line, he's chilling on my shelf. Happy dance? Fuck you, I'm going to do it anyway. Scare Glow was a figure that came at the end of the original Masters line in the 1980s. He was in the very last series, just so you know. To be honest, I never knew/remembered he existed until 1999 when I discovered he-man.org. By the time he came out, I had pretty much moved on to GI Joe, and I knew that last series also had King Randor and the Sorceress, and I mainly spent my time looking for them. This Scare Glow character just didn't register for me. I had plenty of bad guys (most of the figures in the original line were villains) so I rarely looked for more. However, as a discerning adult collector, Scare Glow appealed to me, mostly I'm sure due to scarcity. That's just how it works for toy collectors- if it's rare, it's gotta be good...

Star Wars toys are coming fast and furious these days, thanks to a dicked-up release pattern by Hasbro. This summer was a drought, with Legacy wave 5 showing up in March/April, wave 6 I didn't see until June (and only sporadically), and wave 7 barely made it out here at all until October when Kohl's unleashed a torrent of that particular wave. In the last two months, I've seen figures from four waves in rapid sucession. I won't even be close to scoring what I want from one wave before the next shows up. This has been happening for a few years now, but it's no less annoying. For instance, I picked up this figure, Concept Art IG-88 from wave 11, a full week before I found and picked up the figures I wanted from wave 10. Based on concept art for The Empire Strikes Back by Ralph McQuarrie, I knew as soon as I saw this figure I had to own it. I know the art was merely intended for a background character from a galaxy far, far away, but I'll be damned if it doesn'...

Here's what Hasbro is doing with the GI Joe line this year. I know that if you roll through this blog, you have a little extra cash for luxury, so go ahead a buy a couple of these (or something else) and put them in a drop box. Even if you're buying Joes for yourself, Hasbro still donates something, so it's a win for everybody. I took advantage of Wal-Mart's current $5 price and threw a Duke and Destro in one of the boxes I found at Toys 'R Us, and I know you can swing that too. Help those kids out- they'd probably love to have a fraction of what us collectors have.

Holy shit, have I neglected this blog or what. It wasn't intentional, it just happened. Anyway, I've really put aside the Star Wars collecting in favor of GI Joe. After picking up the recent Return of the Jedi wave, I was left very underwhelmed. I think it had more to do with buyer's remorse than anything. I figured if I hadn't bought a few of those figures, I might have been happier. So I ended up returning half of the figures I bought, and took that money and picked up a set of Joes I had my eye on, the Rescue Mission set that is exclusive to Target. (pics from Generalsjoes!) Yeah, this set rocks. It was $20, and included two Neo-Vipers (didn't have any of those!), a Duke in regular battle fatigues (the Dukes so far in this line all have some kind of specialized armor), and most awesome, a unique version of Snake Eyes. This SE uses the Resolute/City Strike mold with the Paris Pursuit SE head. Since I have yet to find a City Strike SE (very, very, very popular figu...

This is what you can build if you buy all five sets. I would have done so, because I really like Darktrooper action figures, but Wal-Mart (the chain these packs are exclusive to) decided to charge $17 a set for them, so it seems like I won't be doing that after all. I haven't been buying much from the Star Wars line in the last year or two, and things like this are why. It's just a bank-breaking chore to keep up, which begs the question- do I need to keep up? Hasbro really did everything I could have possibly wanted, and that was two years ago, so it's kind of been a strange relationship with this line since then. And now for something completely different: my vintage Star Wars collection.

I received my MOTUC Man-At-Arms this week. As impressed as I was by Hordak, MAA is even better. Of course, Duncan was always one of the better figures in any incarnation, due to the armor and the colors used on the toys. Like Mer-Man, the contrast is quite striking, and makes you pay more attention to the figure than you would otherwise, so you notice more things about the figure in turn. Like his finely detailed and well-painted armor, or the intricate detailing on the helmet on both heads. Yes, you get two heads with this figure, one clean-shaven to represent the original figure's appearance, and one with a 'stache, to represent either his Filmation or MYP/200x appearance. Duncan also features more accessories than any other figure thus far, befitting his status as Eternia's master of weapons- his classic mace, a small laser pistol, and two swords. One is a regular-issue Eternian sword, and the other is a new version of the sword He-Man carried in the 200x line, now retco...