Figure Friday: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

A rare return for the Figure Friday article, it just worked that way this week. The brother of my girlfriend was eager to show me some of his old toys, and pulled out a nice little collection of 2003s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I grew up with the first wave of Turtles figures, the ones from the early 90s, and I vividly remember playing with an insane line-up of wacky toys.

These ones, which I guess can be considered the second wave, look to be similarly wacky. I like this. It's fun, cool, just like action figures should be.
What's even more cool is the impressive play set, the Sewer. The contemporary TMNT toy line also has a great looking playset, released last year, and it goes to show, we shouldn't have to pay $500 for a lackluster play set, when awesome ones are >$100.

Either way, hop on in for many pictures.

Figure Friday: Encore Trailbreaker and Hoist pt. 1

Earlier this month, I wrote an article on Encore #10, the Minibot set. I got a bit excited, because - while simple in construction - there is definitely something special about the original Transformers.
So today, we dug out a few unopened sets from the closet: Encore #13 Autobot Trailbreaker and #14 Autobot Hoist.

Now, this will be the first of two shorter articles, as I'm a bit under the weather today. Still, spirit is high, few things help more than to play with robots.

The Encore line is still active, and I'm really thankful that Takara has found a niche market for these toys. Obviously not intended for kids, as they will prefer more modern toys, these would do really bad in a toy store today. And purists will obviously prefer the vintage toys, not reissues. The Encore sets are basically re-issues, all though they have minuscule variations to set them apart from the original toys.

I'm at least safely placed in this niche market. I don't care if they're not original, 25 year old. Transformers for me are just fun toys that brings nostalgia. I don't consider myself a Transformers collector. The fact that it's the same mold, same styling, made by Takara, and that it's presented pretty close to how the old ones were...It's good enough for me. It's a re-issue. At a tenth of the price, if not less. And for a non-purists, that's the way to go.

The Encore line is still active, and that's a delight. From Encore 1 - which was Optimus Prime, I believe - to the rather recent, and absolutely fantastic Soundblaster and Broadcast, we've been given a nice mix of well known and obscure characters. The announced Encore Fortress Maximus blows my mind. I just can't believe they took it that far. I'm still on the fence on Fort Max, because aside from him being monstrous, he's not really a great Transformer. He's big, and displays ok, but he's no where near a Jetfire or Soundwave, in terms of how good he looks on a shelf. Don't believe me? Take a look at Fort Max robot mode from the side or the back.
He's really cool in base mode, I'll admit. But so is Powermaster Optimus Prime, Metroplex and Scorponok. The latter two I already have, and the former is easily obtainable.
But when all is said and done, it is Fortress Maximus.
Will I take the plunge with the biggest Transformer ever made?
I'm undecided.

Encore 13 and 14 are tiny compared to Fort Max, but really fun toys. I'll get more into the toys themselves in the next part - which may come Monday. What I will give you today is pictures, and a short anecdote.

Back in the day, we had rather limited access to toys. Growing up in the far reaches of the planet, specially when it came to toys, there were a lot of characters we only saw in the comics and cartoons. This went for pretty much all the toys I collected. There was always those characters you never saw. Maybe one kid had gotten something on a holiday trip, or from relatives abroad. But our toy stores were usually just mocking us with their pathetic and boring stock.

Trailbreaker was one of those toys I really wanted. The Transformers comic, which I absolutely loved, had ads picturing other toys in the line. This was just cruel temptation of course, since no toy store I knew of stocked them. But there was something else about Trailbreaker. He just looked so cool, black with red detail, metal parts. I even found his name cool, all though I barely understood the meaning of it. He was breaking something, that much I figured. And as a kid, breaking stuff is cool.

Hoist was another toy I didn't have, but he always looked a bit goofy. In the comics, he was bulky and unappealing. Naturally, he's almost identically to Trailbreaker, but I didn't know that as a kid. I had never seen the toy version of Hoist, not even in adverts. But if he had been present in the ads, make no mistake about it, I would have wanted to have him.

The reason for the discrepancy between the ads and the stock in my local toy store could be that the comics I read were already a few years old, making the ads irrelevant. The first series of robots had gone and passed by the time I got into Transformers. But I'm not sure that is the reason. You could still find various minibots like Bumblebee, Cliffjumper in stores. And the first version of Optimus Prime was readily available almost up until the release of Powermaster Prime. I suspect the weaker characters like Trailbreaker and Hoist weren't imported in the same numbers as the more popular ones, and they were certainly not worth a re-stock.
So we were left drooling over older ads, wondering how awesome they were.

I guess this is about the grass on the other side of the fence, and how much more appealing it looks. Sure enough, these are great toys, but the selection in my local toy store was actually decent. We had enough cool Transformers. We had the various Combiners, Headmasters, and a bit later on, the Pretenders, to mention a few. We didn't suffer a single bit.

And now, thanks to Encore reissues, I can find out if the grass really was greener on the other side.

Did Trailbreaker live up to my expectations? Check back Monday. Enjoy your weekend, people!

Part 2 of this article is here.

Figure Friday: Lego/Star Wars Anecdotes

Kids today have it easy, but at the same time I feel sorry for them. Part of what was fun about Lego was that you could build anything you wanted, and since we never got the movie specific sets, we had to use our imagination - and any bricks we had access to. Sure, the specific sets, like the $3000, 5000 pieces Millennium Falcon set Lego released three years ago is a cool one, but I can imagine it felt just as good to build our own, as it is to get a ready made set. I built Star Wars Lego as a kid, I built the Landspeeder, the Speederbikes, I made Tie Fighters, X-Wing fighters. I made Luke, Darth Vader. I tried my skills on a Star Destroyer. And of course the Millennium Falcon.

A fellow Redditor who calls himself xerxes_fifield stumbled upon a creation from his childhood, and shared with the rest of us, over at http://www.reddit.com/r/lego/ . A magnificent recreation of the Falcon. Far more impressive than the sets we're treated to these days, simply because this was made by a kid, using what ever bricks the kid had access to. Here's several more images of the creation, along with some comments. It's really worth checking out.

It left me wondering if kids these days actually use Lego the way we used to? We built what ever we could imagine. I suspect kids these days - because the insane amount of cool sets available - simply have it too easy, and forgets that you can actually build anything in Lego.

I wish I could find my proudest creation from my childhood, but there are two good reasons why that won't happen. The first being that all my Lego is right now safely accounted for in my closet. The second reason is that my proudest creation was destroyed by a kid my sister was watching.
I had built the mighty Predaking in Lego. It was a perfect recreation, it was huge, with wings, and it was totally bad ass.

Not toy bad ass... it was comic version bad ass.

And this kid, he could have been around 6, at least a few years younger than me. He found my model, and destroyed it. Admittedly, he was slow... That's me being kind. He was the kind of kid that ended up eating sticks of glue, and painting his face with permanent markers. But still... that Predaking, it was the coolest Lego set ever made. They don't make Lego like that these days, and kids have a very different approach to Lego.

I found a Star Wars Lego set in my closet I had forgot I owned. In fact, just last weekend, I saw the set in the stores and thought for my self "hmm, I should buy that set before it runs out of production". Admittedly, I have quite a few unopened Lego sets, but not nearly enough that I should forget what I actually have. The weird thing is that I can't even remember buying it.

It's Luke's Landspeeder, and it really feels like this set has been available for years. It's been around for at least 5 years, and it's noticeable by the old, outdated hairpieces on Luke and Ben Kenobi. Still, I've always wanted this set, it represents memorable scenes from ANH, and like I said, I ended up building my own Landspeeder back when I was a kid. This one is almost just as cool.

Now, a friend of mine are these days getting his Indiana Jones costume ready for a convention over in England. It's amusing how nitpicky he is about the details, but according to him, his peers have a vicious attention to detail. That's fair. I'm excited to see how his costume turns out, and how expensive it will become. But I noticed something really amusing. Surely enough, this convention - your typical fanboy convention - had the usual amount of guests. There was some actors and actresses from obscure tv-shows, and your usual suspects of Star Wars actors that had minor roles. Harrison Ford doesn't show up these places, nor do they ever get Carrie Fisher. I suspect you could find your Billy Dee Williamses and Mark Hamillses (how Gollum was that?) at Comic Con. But this wasn't SDCC, this was England. Who do they get?
The guest of honor at this convention is the guy playing the Stormtrooper that repeats "These are not the droids we're looking for!".
Really.
Enjoy your weekend, people!

Figure Friday: Castle Grayskull videos

Neither of these are particularly new - in Internet time. But they are still fantastic videos.

The first is toy reviewer Pixel Dan's informative and entertaining video on the old Castle Grayskull from Masters of the Universe. It just shows what a monumental play set this was, and it should be obvious why many enthusiasts regard this as quite possibly the best play set ever made for a toy line.

The other video is Pixel Dan and Daniel Benedict (winner of this year's Create a Character contest) just goofing off. It's meant to be a encouragement to those sitting on the fence with the new Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull. And at this point, I too am excited over the possibility that it gets made, so head on over to mattycollector and make a pre-order.

Enjoy your weekend, people!

Figure Friday: Encore 10, Minibots

Nothing fancy today, just small, re-issued Transformers. Come on in for more!

Figure Friday: MorpHex, The robot that can literally transform and roll out!

I stumbled upon a fellow Norwegian, who has taken upon himself to make his own robots. This particular robot is called "MorpHex", and looks amazingly complicated to me, yet surprisingly elegant. I like this, because there is a thought behind both design and the way it's going to behave - design and function are complimenting each other.

There's obviously also the fact that it can transform - and roll out. I'm glad there are people out there making insanely cool creations like this on their spare time.

More information on the MorpHex and his other projects can be found on his site Robot-Kits.

Enjoy your weekend!

Figure Friday: Weaponeers of Monkaa

I like being surprised.

While I did expect a certain amount of surprises from Spy Monkey Creations' new toy line Weaponeers of Monkaa, I had not expected to be blown away. And the surprise wasn't just that the toys were well made, and extremely versatile, but also that for an independent toy line, you're actually getting A LOT of toy for your money. 

I'd argue that when quality, price and play value are taking into consideration, this is the perfect Christmas gift for anyone and everyone. 

Read on for details and images. 

Figure Friday: The Small Minifigures

Let's get two things straight:

Smaller versions of, well.. anything, is cute. That's a fact. Do a google search for baby animals for evidence that even baby crocodiles, sharks and vultures are cute. In the right context, baby spiders can even be considered cute. 

The second thing is that the minifigure, with the word "mini" in it, is cute. After all they are small, smiling, colorful, with stubby hands and feet. Cuteness overload. 

But The Lego Group, wise people, thinks for themselves, "how can we make this cuter?" 

Well... By putting small feet on the minifigures. 

But not all minifigures are cute by default. I want to find out if the simple chance of pants will make them cute. So read on for a bit of experimentation. 

Figure Friday: Lego 9500 Sith Interceptor Review

For all my Lego articles, I haven't really made any proper reviews. Well, that's not entirely true. But if we're talking about sets with a certain size, I have yet to do a review where I talk about the build, the parts, the design, playability and display quality. I'm not sure this will be such a review either, and honestly if you want that kind, do a search over at eurobricks.com. But I'll try anyway.

Read on for my thoughts on the Lego Star Wars 9500 Sith Fury-class Interceptor.

Figure Friday: IKEA Groland, and other tools...

First time in Figure Friday, I will feature something else than toys. Well... not your traditional understanding of what a toy is anyway. Because the fact is that I consider these items very similar to my toys.

Read on for an explanation, and for what is quite possibly the greatest furniture ever!

Figure Friday: Transformers Box Art part 2

No internet, no kitchen, all toys packed in boxes. It's not sad, but it is a bit annoying. I'm not sure when I'm back with the regular schedule, but I can assure you I have some cool stuff on the way, both when it comes to displaying action figures, and recipes.

Today, I'll share some more Transformers box art, mostly from Japanese releases. So step in for the robots!

Figure Friday: Trash Bag Bunch

A short article today, as I'm moving. Just a few words on the deliciously disgusting Trash Bag Bunch!

I've wanted to mention these for a long time, it was a toy line sold in the early 90s. Your basic blind packed static 2 inch figurine (robots, monsters, aliens, humanoids) packed in a bag that would dissolve in water. It's a rather obscure toy line, but most people around the age of 30 recognizes a few of them, and at the very least the way they were being sold.  I see there are toy lines similar to the Trash Bag Bunch in the stores these days, so kids: here's how it started.

Now, I don't actually know a lot about this toy line, other than the basics. But I found this wonderful resource page on the line, and was actually able to identify a couple of the figurines I owned as a kid.

http://melbirnkrant.com/trash/

Really worth the read. The two guys pictured are ones I vividly remember owning. Fun!

Figure Friday: Play Features in Masters of the Universe Classics

The line is in danger, should we believe Toyguru over at Mattycollector. Obviously we shouldn't, because history clearly has shown us that he's not to be trusted. But the sad part isn't that Toyguru once again tries to scare us into buying the subscription for Masters of the Universe Classics - and in turn signing up to get a bunch of figures we haven't even seen, and potentially don't want. The sad part is that they blame the customers. The rhetoric used is that "if the line fails, it's because lack of interest from you, the collectors!".

No. Just no. 

If the line is failing, it's because we collectors aren't allowed to collect these toys the way we ideally should. We don't like to buy figures blindly, no one does. Toyguru should have shared with us the schedule for the entire year. But that's not all. We also have to suffer an endless array of bland variants, obscure characters we don't really care for, and new characters that are downright awful.
Pair this with horrific customer service, increased prices, iffy quality control and the constant condescending feedback to the community... Is this really on us collectors?

But I digress, I really do. Because today, I want to show two highlights from 2012. These two figures were Mattycollector doing it right! One was a variant that hit absolutely all the right buttons, without maintaining what made it interesting in the 80s, the other was an absolutely brilliant figure, that not only kept its play feature, but also came with a ton of display possibilities.

Read on for Mattel doing it right.

Figure Friday: Targetmaster Sureshot

I'm usually in a mood for robots in the summer. I can't explain why, but the toy of choice during the summer are robots. Sure, I've mentioned that anything from building big Lego sets to assembling G.I. Joe vehicles are great summer activities. But this is a more general feeling I get during the summer, the urge to play with Transformers, the splurge when I buy a big, vintage robot toy, or just writing about them. You've seen quite the concentration of robot-related articles lately, right? Well, today is no exception, as I write a short one about Transformers Targetmaster Sureshot.

Figure Friday: G1 Jetfire

With this article, I'm taking a week vacation.

A Figure Friday on Jetfire has been in the making for a while. In some ways, I have almost been nervous for writing this, or taking the pictures. You see, neither the pictures nor my words will suffice in describing how magnificent this toy is. I will of course try my best, but as you will see, the pictures I've taken are mediocre.
And my words.. well read on for what is truly the best toy ever made.

Figure Friday: Mirage Transformation

Enjoy your weekend!

Figure Friday: G.I. Joe Desert Fox

Desert Fox was my favorite vehicle in the G.I. Joe line. And that's as personal as I'll get this Friday. Sure, I can come with arguments to why I liked it, but I find it rather universal. No one can not appreciate the way this armed off road car was presented.

I'll explain inside...

Figure Friday: Battle Force 2000

Stepping just a bit too far out of bounds when it came to the quasi-futuristic theme of G.I. Joe, the sub-team Battle Force 2000 is slightly controversial among collectors. I love them of course, and as you saw in in my list of the Top 100 Joes, BF2k ended up in the top 50.

But I never had the full team, until now...

Read on for Figure Friday on the unfortunate Battle Force 2000!

Figure Friday: Remember Dino Riders?

I had a couple of Dino Riders toys back in the day, and I remember them fondly. I'll see if I can find them some day.
They were very similar to M.A.S.K., with that two inch figure size, and transformable vehicles. Except the vehicles were dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with lasers and rockets. Piloted by lizard- and insect men. How awesome is that?? I believe they were, like all 80-90s toys, accompanied by a cartoon, but I've never seen it.

Made by severely underrated toy company Tyco, the dinosaurs were so well made they ended up being repacked (without weapons and creepy insect warriors) and sold in various historical museums. The biggest dinosaurs had battery driven motorized motion.

Like I said, I'll dig up my old ones some day, if I can find them. But today, I'll simply share this delicious promo poster.

Enjoy your weekend!

Figure friday: assembling the tomahawk

Every summer for the last ten years, I've treated myself with a big toy of some sort. It has been everything from the box sets from Marvel Legends, to the big Lego buildings. Today, as last year, it will probably be a robot of some sort, or maybe the always relevant unassembled G.I. Joe vehicle.

There's something about assembling a Joe vehicle. It's relaxing, soothing, almost meditative - In addition to it being incredibly fun. Taking the time to study how it was produced, and how it's assembled. Noticing details in paint and sculpt. The idea of the toy being completely unused, the thought of playing with a pristine example of a toy. The thought of the screaming elitist collectors who think that a toy like this is best left inside the box.
Open your toys people!

And here's a few pictures from me assembling the mighty Tomahawk a few years back.