Sitting in boxes I have Starscream, Skywarp, Soundwave, Sideswipe, Prowl, Bluestreak, Wheeljack and Bumblebee. I'm not quite sure why I haven't opened them yet, I similarly delayed opening my G1 reissues when I first started collecting so it's not without precedent. This week I popped my preorder in for Thundercracker, and am keenly waiting for Ironhide. I've been dithering about Tracks as I'm going for a season 1 lineup so he doesn't quite fit, he is however obviously looking pretty snazzy. (Grimlock is an exception to the S1 thing because I collect Grimlocks.)
I struggled with Masterpiece figures in exactly he same way I struggled with WST and Classics, I'm wasn't keen on getting yet again another Prime and Starscream. I like the slightly more obscure and in each case when the more obscure characters came I duly bought into the line. I have never really been a fan of the Masterpiece Starscream mold, even after its remold into MP11, so one problem with my S1 plan is the requirement to buy the mold three times. A particularly expensive mold at that. So this week I have had an amazing idea: just collect original mold S1+S2 characters! I'll make an exception for Ironhide and Ratchet because they're important characters (and maybe Prowl and Bluestreak because I like the idea of a complete 1984 Autobot lineup), but no Skywarp, Thundercracker, Red Alert or Smokescreen. Or Hot Rod or Ultra Magnus.
This idea of just collecting a few characters is one which I quite like, with Turtles, I've got the four NECA Turtles, but then the Turtles, Shredder, Krang, Splinter and April as Lego minifigs (plus the Turtle van). With Thundercats I've got the minimates for the Thundercats, the new Thundercats plus Mumm-Ra and the mutants. I intend to get just the main Thundercats from Mattel's new line. With Ghostbusters I've got the NECA Stay Puft, then the Lego Ecto-1 with Ghostbusters minifigs. I've just got a Titans Slimer figure to go with my villain collection, I think the Mattel one would scale better but this one was a lot more affordable.
Power Rangers I've just got Dragonzord, Tigerzord and the Figuarts Green and White rangers. I wouldn't mind some Power Rangers mini figures, I did briefly consider the Loyal Subjects 3" figures, but they're blind boxed with the Black Ranger short packed. What the heck were they thinking?!
With Star Wars I've got the original trilogy characters as Lego minifigs (with AT-AT), then I'm collecting the main Jedi and Sith (from all films) as 3.75" figures. Here's Yoda and Qui-Gon. I'm thinking that I might need to look out for the 3.75" Black series Kylo Ren...
With Marvel, I've got almost every character as a 3.75" figure then just a few key characters as Lego minifigs (with a Hulbuster armour). With DC, I've Batman and his villains as 3.75" figures and the main Justice League characters as Lego minifigs. With Transformers I've got most of the characters as Classics scaled figures, but now I'm getting the S1+S2 original mold characters as Masterpiece figures. There's no need to get every character in every format, sometimes it's better just to get your favourite or main characters, especially in the bigger scales.
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As a Transformers collector I really should know better than to start worrying about scale, but here goes. More or less once a week I go the various city centre toy shops and check whether they've got anything new in. So checking the Disney Store I spotted the Marvel Select Hulkbuster which I had previously seen mentioned online.
For some reason the Hulkbuster armour really appeals to me. I've already got the 3.75" version and I've got a Lego version, but the (Iron Man 2 line 3.75") version, I know is too small. So this got me thinking, how big should the bigger Marvel characters be in 3.75" scale. Or 4" scale at least. I found a page on the Marvel Wiki which gives the heights of most Marvel characters. Now, I know that over time the 'official' height has probably changed several times, especially with different artists' interpretation and some characters can change their size anyway.
So going by the Marvel Wiki, Hulk should be 8' tall. At a 1:18 scale, that would make an appropriate figure 5 1/3" tall. He's actually about 4 2/3" tall, as are most of the larger figures. (Abomination should be 4 1/3" , Rhino and Juggernaut should be 4 2/3", so pretty much spot on.) The Hulkbuster armour however (according to a different source) is 11' tall. That means it should be 7 1/3" tall. The Marvel Select figure is just over 8", which although a bit too big, is far closer than the 4 1/3" IM2 armour. So really, I needed the Marvel Select figure, and for 19.99, there's not much to argue with. (The original Legends version would be pretty much spot on, but not worth it.) I'll do some comparison shots once I open it.
Incidentally, Sasquatch is 10' tall so should be 6", which is what the Alpha Flight line version I have is. Wendigo is 9' 7" tall so should be a hair over 5 2/3" tall. I have plans to make a custom Wendigo, so should look okay if he's just over 5".
My Sith 'army' (I'm ignoring the rule of two) is coming on well with the arrival of Maul and Dooku. Both are really good figures, Dooku does look a bit worried though, maybe it's capturing the moment where he he realises him fighting Anakin was all part of Palpatine's plan.
I also received my Reprolabels that turn Lego 1x2 flat tiles into cassettes. They look pretty good!
Something that occurred to me with Darth Maul (and in fact General Grievous who I haven't got yet), is that it's quite possible to like the characters from something even though the source material isn't very good. Star Wars is the case in point here, many of the characters from the prequel trilogy are popular characters. Jedi such as Mace Windu and Kit Fisto for example, actually I think the original clone wars cartoon helped there. Green Lantern was the same for me, everything I know about the character(s) is from that Ryan Reynolds film, but I still find myself interested in the Green Lantern mythos. I even decided to get a Lego minifig of him. I have also decided to get Lego Avengers to go against my Lego Justice League so picked up a Thor as well.
I'm moving my Transformers display to a different room, it was spread across several Ikea shelving units, but now it's going to a room with two great big shelves. I initially thought that I'd make one Decepticon and the other Autobot, so I put all of my Classics styled Decepticons on a table at the same time. It was an interesting exercise. Not only do they differ wildly in scale, but also style with the various Hasbro lines and third party companies. Universe Darkwing is a repaint of Universe Ultra Silverbolt, he towers over everyone else when really, deluxe would be fine. Shockwave, Galvatron and Thunderwing are far too small. It did give me a renewed appreciation for the toys though.
I think I'm going to try and group them according to company and size. I decided to display the Mastermind Creations Predacons as individual robots. They are a great set of toys, I actually really enjoyed taking them apart and transforming them. Speaking of MMC, I really like the look of their new Overlord coming out, it's going to take a lot of willpower to pass on it - sadly I really can't justify the money.
I had decided to sell my Perfect Effect Fortress Maximus (Warden), but having just finished the fourth volume of MTMTE I've changed my mind. I was going to sell in anticipation of getting the Titan version next year, a remold of Metroplex. I have several reasons: keeping the PE version is cheaper, takes up less space, is comic book accurate and it kinda takes something away from the awesomeness and uniqueness of Metroplex to have a second version of the mold. That and we don't know he's definitely coming!
I bought the KO MP Ratbat. It's a solid figure, much more solid than the KFC figure. I would love to have got the official version but for £100 odd quid I just can't justify it. If we get MP Blaster we"ll probably have the same thing happen as there's an even number of cassettes - one cassette with Blaster, one with Twincast and a two-pack of the others. In other news, a MP Shockwave prototype has been displayed. Looks awesome, with the Classics/FOC being so small I need a decently sized figure of the character.
I've bought and opened a couple of other things, Beast Wars II Megastorm, pretty much just G2 Megatron. Very glad to finally get this toy to complete my Predacon lineup. It's a very solid blocky toy, but in a good way. I have the G2 comics so I can appreciate it on several levels. The poor bugger's more or less going straight into storage though.
I also opened Combiner Wars Motormaster, as luck would have it, it was the version with the updated hips (so I suppose I have something to thank Hasbro UK for by not releasing it). I really like it, it does everything it needs to and is a great update for the character. I'm keeping him in bot mode for the time being.
With Motormaster I also got the DC Multiverse Batman Beyond figure, he looks pretty good but lacks any ankle articulation. He does have thigh swivels though so it is possible to pose him.
It's been quite an expensive month but I've sold a few bits and bobs so the balance sheet's not looking too bad. I can't believe what a Star Wars kick I'm on, I didn't realise how susceptible I was to hype. The remaining figures I need are in sight and I'm very tempted to buy the previous films to watch before episode VII!
