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Transformer of the Day for November 25, 2009

NEEDLENOSE

-Faction: Decepticon (Targetmaster)
-Era: Generation One (1984-1992)
-Function: Aerial Warrior
-Motto: “Get Hip or Get Hit”
-Notable Toy: Deluxe (Hasbro, 1988)

Notes: As I talked about for Spinister, Needlenose was part of his year’s triad of villains. He didn’t get the airtime he might have warranted due to the absence of a North American cartoon, but that didn’t mean he didn’t make his presence known. Which, as you can see, frequently consisted of him getting beat on or running away, frequently in the company of Spinister. Maybe they shouldn’t hang out after all…

(Apologies and thanks to bbts.com and shmax.com for the toy image.)

While it is entirely possible that Hasbro will get around to releasing the unreleased wave of Transformers Universe Robot Heroes (BM Optimus Primal and Jetstorm, RiD Optimus and RiD Megatron, Prowl and Laserbeak, and Victory Sabre and Deathsaurus), I am getting itchy. Particularly when they appear on eBay.

On the one hand, how can I not have them in my collection? And yet, do I want to pay the sky high prices for the prototypes of what may actually be eventual releases? I mean I was willing to pay in the $25 range for the Tigatron / Inferno and Predaking / Stepper two packs that have so far only appeared in Europe. But $25 is not the $132.50 paid for Laserbeak / Prowl. But what if they don’t get bid up? Can I really afford not to be involved in the process in case the final price was one that I was totally willing to pay?

With these mixed feelings, I have been doing a bit of defensive bidding when the two packs come up. Early this morning (4:00 a.m. to be exact), the auction for all four sets loose came to a close. I didn’t stay up until 4:00 a.m. to see them through but I put in some defensive bids (although admittedly they were high defensive bids).

The results? Well Prowl and Laserbeak were gone gone gone well before I started my bidding, already at $65 four hours before the auctions closed. So I put in $45-$50 bids on the other three. For some reason, $46.79 was enough to secure the winning bid on Star Sabre and Deathsaurus (so they are coming home soon), but I was narrowly outbid on the Primal and Jetstorm set ($46.61) and Optimus and Megatron set ($47.78). The only thing I can think of is that since the other two sets went to the same person, and the Star Sabre and Deathsaurus set was the middle auction of a string of three auctions in a one minute period, my competitor just could get his computer to turn back to this set in time to outbid me. Lucky me!

Yes, it’s more than I had hoped to get them for, but I have them and there is satisfaction in victory. There will be disappointment if I find them as peg warmers in TRU in 2010. But then I hope they do make it too, because they are such a fantastic wave.

Part four is a response to 21st century technology.

There was a nice little post all ready to go on the new computer, but it got lost in the reworking of a bunch of other posts (which happens sometimes when the website overwrites one post with another). Anyway, I’ve already talked about the new computer over at the other blog, and here it is, all shiny and out of box.

It’s fast and the screen is beautiful, but I am still migrating files from the portable drive onto the new harddrive, and I have yet to install a version of Photoshop because I don’t have one that is Windows 7 compliant. Which is causing grief for the TF of the Day work, but I hope to correct that soon.

Anyway, behold the box, set up on November 15th.

Transformer of the Day for November 23, 2009

BEASTBOX

-Faction: Decepticon
-Era: Generation One (1984-1992)
-Function: Interrogator
-Motto: “Speak Now If You Ever Intend to Speak at All“
-Notable Toy: Basic Two-Pack (Hasbro, 1988)

Notes: Literally a monkey on your back, Beastbox combines with Squawktalk to form Squawkbox. But given that his alternative form is a tape deck in the Generation One style of toys, Beastbox nevertheless retains a measure of three-dimensionality that is sometimes lacking in his cohorts.

(Apologies and thanks to toyarchives.com for the toy pics.)

Part three is about my first foray (should that be Moray?) into the world of the Rise of Cobra toys.

I have come to love the 25th anniversary line of G.I. Joe toys as I believe I’ve expressed on more than one ocassion. Modern technology + classic figures = win. In fact, under construction is a comparison offering of how to round our the first six years of Joes as if it were 1982 through 1987… But while I miss the classic body types of old, you can’t go wrong with the chance to bring home an original ‘83 style Snake Eyes or never-before-released-on-card H.I.S.S. Driver, Mint on Mint Card!

Now that G.I. Joe has gone the way of everything movie, Hasbro has taken some liberties with the Rise of Cobra line to use it as a backdoor to some of the figures or characters it didn’t get to put out as part of the anniversary line, primarily through exclusives. Charboil is one of these cases. Unlike some other current or pending releases (like Heavy Metal… er… Rampage), Charboil does not exactly mirror his 1980s counterpart as much as pay small homage to him. But I’m a sucker for a blowtorch and so, on sale this week at Zeller when I picked him up on Friday (November 13th), I brought him.

He came home much easier mind you given the appearance of a certain piece of recoloured armour on the right. The S.N.A.K.E. armour has been white (and probably yellow by now in a lot of collections), rarely blue, and red overseas (except when it was aging grey) but it’s never been black. Before now. As far as I can tell, this is the original, and joining a series of toys to come including a Crimson coloured Mobile Missile System and a repainted Firebat.

Given that I am in the middle of playing through the Rise of Cobra game with Kirilaw (which gets great nostalgia points but is a game that someone should have put better functionality into the save points and camera mobility), it’s Joe-tastic here right now.Now can we get us a Terrordome? Pretty please?

Part two deals with my love of the super deformed characters that are increasingly everywhere.

It’s true isn’t it? The cute super deformed characters are really everywhere you look. Multiple lines of G.I. Joe and Transformers, to say nothing of Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Marvel Heroes. But if there was one series that overwhelmed me when they were discovered, it was him.

The Doctor.

Doctor Who products tend to show up mostly in specialty shops in Canada, so you can forgive me for being completely blown away when, checking out sale G.I.Joe figures at the Nepean Comic Book Shoppe (where I grabbed Major Bludd, Tiger Force Duke and Flint as Cobra Officer), Kirilaw tapped me on the shoulder and showed me these.

Time Squad.

There is a funny thing about this line of fifteen figures, and it is evident in the first part of this sentence. Fifteen. Why on earth would a series of toys that come in sets of twos have an odd number of characters (which in fact led to the inclusion of the 10th Doctor in two sets)? Because the sets were originally released in the U.K. in three sets of five.Presumably they were repackaged for our market to resemble domestic examples. The benefit is that you have two different ways to get the Doctor, if you are not a completist. Or you have a Doctor to spare.

For now, I am not a completist, and held myself to the three sets that really interest me. So I have a Cyberman, two Daleks, a Clockwork Man, the Doctor, and a character I just haven’t met yet. Awesome - pure awesome - at $12.99 a pop.

Transformer of the Day for November 21, 2009

JOLT

-Faction: Decepticon (Triggercon)
-Era: Generation One (1984-1992)
-Function: Data Collector
-Motto: “Things Are Never as Good as They Seem“
-Notable Toy: Exclusive (Hasbro, 2008)

Notes: Crankcase is one of those occasions where a toy that is notionally dedicated to the movie line is repurposed back into Generation One for the purposes of the TF of the Day exercise. Mainly because the repaint is just so perfect a representation of the original triggerbot. I figure it is only fair since his orings lies in G1 anyway. But what a super repaint! Much better than the movie inspired art that followed (and follows…):