Where is everyone going? The Exodus

I've become aware of an ever increasing trend in the Transformers community lately: longtime prominent collectors scaling back by orders of magnitude, or getting out of the hobby altogether. I must admit I am not immune to this recent trend as I have recently written about on this very blog. But why are so many collectors seemingly abandoning something they have spent years of their lives working on and obsessing over? I don't know for sure, but I have a few theories.

SCF: The Truth Who the Eyes Met Before!

What can I say? I'm a sucker for small collectible figures. The Super Collection Figure (SCF for short) line began in 2001 and continued through 2003 consisting of ten waves of six figures each. Each wave released each figure in a color version and either a clear or pewter color version depending on the wave. And of course because they were released in Japan, they were blind packed. Back when the characters of G1 was a scarcity (not like today) collectors were clamoring for anything they could get their hands on; and the SCF line provided cartoon accurate representations of their favorite characters in a small, relatively cheap form.

Unicron's Four Horsemen

Back in 2004 a little over a year after the Transformers: Armada toyline had debuted something very interesting happened; apparently the line was such a success Hasbro had underestimated the demand and needed a few extra toys in order to fill out the line before the next incarnation, Transformers: Energon, was released. As a solution they decided to re-paint five molds that were used for Beast Wars, remold them slightly and then release them under the Armada banner. As a result the transmetal incarnations of Cheetor, Rhinox, Airrazor, Terrorsaur and Megatron started showing up in stores with Mini-con partners. Now I don't usually talk about anything from the Unicron Trilogy because it is something that I have absolutely no love for, however I feel these five figures are a special case.

Not long after they were released a few fans came up with (what I feel) was an inherently ingenious idea that Cheetor, Rhinox, Airrazor and Terrorsaur were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding their transmetal tyrannosaur steeds of the underword: Megatron. Eventually this idea gained such popularity that the then-current owners of the Transformers comic book tie-in license, Dreamwave, incorporated it into their story with the four figures being the Horsemen of Unicron (basically the Transformers version of the devil or ultimate evil). Unfortunately Megatron (he was re-named Predacon for his Armada release) was cut from the story. Personally I thought Predacon worked better as a 'horse' than the non-toy characters in the comic. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the comic story was never finished because Dreamwave folded, but that is an entirely different story.

At any rate, I purchased these five figures back in 2004 and they have been part of my collection ever since. The odd thing is: their new color schemes seem to accurately reflect their new personalities. I mean Airrazor was released in an almost completely black color scheme that just screams 'Death'. Currently they are perched on the very top shelf in my room, casting their demonic gazes below to all the Transformer underlings. Even though they are minor characters in what some would consider a mediocre storyline (and I would probably tend to agree), I feel like they represent an important part of the mythos nonetheless. By establishing that Unicron's heralds are often harbingers of doom it speaks volumes to the creation of Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps 18 years earlier. Could they have been potential 'Horsemen' as well? Something to consider.

Pestilence

Famine

Death

War

...and the Horse

After writing this post and pondering the matter more carefully, I feel like I need to go out and purchase three more Predacons in order to complete my Horsemen collection. And then maybe some saddles. Yes, definitely need saddles.

X-Dimension Air Defense Microns - The Fire Saber!

Wow things are getting random around here lately. But I did make a lot of random purchases recently so it isn't that surprising. I also figured that most bloggers are in the process of talking about either the Botcon Exclusives or the recent TF Collector Club Exclusives so I thought I should offer up something a little different. When Transformers: Armada was just getting started back in 2002 one of the innovative new things about the line was the introduction of Minicons (or the reintroduction of Micromasters if you like to think of it that way). Minicons were normally either sold with a larger figure or in three-packs usually revolving around a theme. One of the first three packs was the Air Defense Minicon Team: Sonar, Runway and Jetstorm. They could each transform from a small jet to robot and could also combine to form the Star Saber; a mythical weapon of great power in the series (and named after the Japanese only Supreme Commander of Transformers: Victory).

The idea behind the minicons was to emulate the "collect them all" mentality of Pokemon which was incredibly popular at the time. So it was no surprise that every minicon released was recolored over and over again. By my count the Air Defense Team was recolored at least three, maybe four times and remolded and recolored twice more for later releases. When Armada first came out I was determined to collect every single minicon that was released, whether it was a recolor or not. Unfortunately it became immediately clear to me that this would never be a reality due to all of the Japanese exclusive releases, some of which are very, very rare. However, I really liked the idea behind the combining minicons, so I was determined to at least attempt to collect all of the combiners. Two weeks ago, that goal became one step closer with the purchase of the X-Dimension Air Defense Team: a Japanese exclusive repaint of the Air Defense Team in a "fire" theme that was very limited. To my knowledge (and Flywheels may need to correct me here) that was the last repaint of these figures I needed in order to complete my "Star Saber" collection.

So now I can finally display all of my "Sabers" together!

Robot Modes

Vehicle Modes

Jetstorm and his repaints/remolds

In robot form

Sonar and his repaints/remolds

In robot modes

Runway and his repaints/remolds

Robot modes

From Left to Right: The Cybertron Saber, The Fire Saber, The Star Saber, The Dark Saber, The Ice Saber, The Energon Saber

All the Robots!

I wasn't planning on purchasing "The Fire Saber" while at Botcon, I just happened upon it (a lot like Rattrap) and I couldn't resist since it was at such a good price and was still sealed. Maybe I will end up with all the minicons after all, it may just take a really long time :-)