The Last Piece...

Whew, it has been slow around here lately. Although with me not purchasing much  and the 2012 Olympics going on I'm not really surprised. But I did want to showcase one little item I obtained recently. You can see it in the picture to the right. If it isn't immediately recognizable to you as G1 Splashdown's spear then you're not as crazy as they say you are. If you did recognize it, then I can't really help your obsessive needs.

SDCC Bruticus and all that Hype

Big Damn Box

I think Hasbro must have some weird rules about when it makes combiner figures. The first rule would have to be "No extra parts in any mode". Okay, I can understand that one. They want to cut down on costs and so there is no need to have extra parts in either the individual or the combined modes. In fact, I'm in favor of this idea when it can be put to good use. The second rule must be "All limbs must be interchangeable, no matter what." And this is the one that really irks me. I don't understand why they just can't commit one limb to one place; some of the best combiners have been made this way: Devestator, Predaking, Liokaiser, and so on. But when they need to make engineering sacrifices to ensure each limb can be both an arm and a leg then the overall figure suffers. And that is the problem with SDCC Bruticus (and all his subsequent repaints). But it does look like they have learned from at least some of their past mistakes and made Bruticus one of the best official modern combiners to date.

Arms Micron Breakdown (with friend)

I'll be honest, I didn't like Transformers: Prime when it first came out. It had way too many "movie" elements to it for my liking, especially the mute Bumblebee. But the more I watched the show the more it grew on me. However I still wasn't completely sold until the folks at Botcon 2011 previewed an upcoming episode for us featuring this guy: Breakdown. The episode was appropriately titled 'Operation: Breakdown' and it really fleshed out Breakdown as a character giving him more than just a "Decepticon SMASH" personality. It was after viewing this episode that I was hooked on Prime as well as Breakdown's character. I've always really enjoyed bad guys that aren't evil just for the sake of being evil but actually have histories and motives for what they do. I had been looking forward to seeing Breakdown released domestically ever since then, but apparently it was not meant to be.

It Never Ends!

Today's the day! Finally the day has arrived that the original Marvel comic storyline is continued in the world of the Transformers! It's probably mostly nostalgia, but I've always loved the original run of comics; what started as a four issue limited series and eventually expanded to eighty issues has finally come back to life! It is no secret that the original storyline was cut short by dwindling sales, but how cool is it that IDW was able to work with the original creators to bring it back and finish it in a proper way? I feel especially lucky as my copy features Cover B, complete with throwback coloring techniques (remember all the tiny dots?) and featuring a retro Optimus Prime in the top left corner. It might as well be 1991 all over again! I haven't read it yet, I am still savoring the feeling, but never before have I been this excited about a comic release. I may share my thoughts on it later.

Toyworld Hegemon in all his Megatron-y goodness

Due to his unique nature Generation 1 Megatron is very difficult to update. I mean, he turns from the leader of the Decepticons into a handheld gun, which honestly seems kinda stupid. But ever since Generation 2, Megatron has always taken another form whether that be a tank, jet, or tanker truck. Everyone can agree that Optimus Prime has always been and will always be a semi-truck of some sort. But with Megatron it is a different story, no one can really agree on what exactly he should transform into. This also has really affected the G1 updates we have received in the past. The closest we ever got to an actual G1 Megatron was the Nerf-inspired classics Megatron which was a bit of a disappointment, but hey we take what we can get.