Toy Bender

Thanks to the fine people at Krause Publishing, I snagged a copy of The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe 1982-1994 to give away to one fine Toy Bender fan (or ToyBendinite as you often refer to yourselves at the chapter meetings). That’s right, true believers! You could get your very own copy of the premier G.I. Joe collecting by Mark Bellomo. That’s a 26.99 value for free! I’ll be giving my impressions of the book soon, but here’s the quick and dirty version if you’re on the fence about entering the contest: It’s great and you should have it.

There are three ways to qualify:

1. Post a comment below stating what G.I. Joe figure or vehicle is your favorite toy from the line and why. Include your real email so I can get your address if you win.

2. Become a fan of the Toy Bender Facebook page.

3. Follow me on Twitter.

Each of the above items will give you an entry into the contest, so that’s up to three entries! If you already follow me on Twitter and/or are a fan on Facebook, send me a message to WinBigPrizesWinBigMoney@gmail.com telling me who you are so I can give you credit (sometimes nicknames don’t match up, so I can’t remember who is who).

One random person will win themselves a copy of the book! Winner will be announced July 17th.

Thanks again to Krause Publications, publishers of fine hobby books and magazines. They’re also located in Wisconsin like I am now, so Wisconsin pride… or whatever.

A special thanks goes out to Mr. Bellomo.

While cruising the G.I. Joe message boards I noticed that there’s a lot of fans that don’t seem to like many of the G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra toys because they are based on what looks like a shitty movie and many of the figures don’t fit into their idea of a Joe universe. At first I didn’t think I’d buy any of the non-old school inspired Joe figures, but I’m warming up a bit to some of them. I must admit however, that it’s not just because they all look pretty cool. It’s been such a long Joe dry spell that I’d pretty much buy anything right now. My new strategy is that if it looks like it fits in with my other figures and it’s cool, then I’m getting it unless it’s highly overpriced like the Marvel Universe line.

Here are some of the figures I’m looking forward to:

1. General Hawk - If you don’t want a Dennis Quaid action figure, you’re a Communist. This movie now has allowed us to have a Mike Brody from Jaws 3D. Or the dad from Yours, Mine, and Ours. You’re choice.

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I’m already behind on Star Wars vehicles that I want need and Hasbro isn’t making it any easier. First up is the “Crumb Bomber“:

I’m really not hot on the name, but I love me some Gunship action. What’s great about this gunship, which will be a Toys R Us exclusive, is that it has been retooled a bit. It’s got doors that fully close now as well as new missile pods in the wings. I’ve never opened the one gunship that I have, so I guess perhaps it’s time to let that one go and get this one. Now that a battle pack is going to come out that comes with a gunner pod, I’m totally all about opening up a gunship and loading it with troopers for display.

By the way, does anyone know if someone is making repro stickers for Gunship art yet? I’m going to need to get rid of the Salacious Crumb and replace it with a sexy Twi’lek or two.

The other cool Star Wars vehicle due out is the Clone Wars style Y-Bomber:

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I get email news updates from a couple of online stores and while browsing through the latest mailing from Brian’s Toys (one of the fine sponsors of last year’s Joes for Tots contest), I saw that there was going to be an Ewok themed battle pack. Well feast your eyes on this beauty:

What? One Ewok!? Granted he’s got a flying rig there, but one Ewok? And two other dudes? That’s like two and a half figures total! I was suitably upset and wrote this on Twitter:

Paul_Rudolph Thanks to @brianstoys I now know there’s an Ewok battle pack that comes with 1 ewok. Woah, Hasbro way to be generous with the ewoks.

Seriously, this doesn’t even qualify as a battle pack. I know times are tough and they’ve moved from giving us five figures to four or three and a neat pack in, but come on already. This is two and a half figures and a piece of plastic that’s been released several times already.

Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn’t care so much about an Ewok, but awhile back I made the commitment to myself to rebuild my vintage Ewok village to be faster, stronger, and all of that. I need as many Ewoks that I can get my hands on to populate the thing and you’d think an “Ewok Battle Pack” would basically take care of my needs. Hell, they’ve packed two Ewoks on a single card, so you’d think that even now that they are down to four normal figures that they could stuff at least four Ewoks in there plus a bonus into an “Ewok Battle Pack”.

At least this gave me a reason to break any kind of record for the number of times “Ewok” was mentioned in a single post on the internet.

Marvel Universe wave five info is out and it’s a bit underwhelming overall. Fans of Marvel Comics super heroes will be able to finally get their hands on another villain in the classic looking Electro. I realize there’s a lot of heroes that people want, but why the huge lack of villains? More villains please!

Out of all the figures int his wave I would like to get my hands on a Guardian. I know nothing about him, but I always really dug the Canadian costumes that about four heroes have variations of. Other than that, I really don’t need a modern Sub-Mariner, a refill of Spider-Man, or a repaint of Iron Man. In fact, the repaint bothers me because when I saw that there was going to be a Silver Centurion Iron Man I didn’t think he was going to be a lazy repaint. I want the Silver Centurion Iron Man, not that horrid looking current armor in any form.

Thanks to: Marvelous News

I hate to keep writing about my collection of toys and everything related to it, but please bear with me. This is the first time I’ve had all this stuff together in years. Anyway, as I’m digging through everything I discovered to my horror that I have way too many Millennium Falcons. Check this out:

That’s three on the right which are from the classic variety and this is not counting my vintage Falcon that is missing many pieces and is in storage. Then to the left is the big ass Falcon that I was so happy to get last year. How does one end up with three essentially identical toys? Well the first one was the one of the bottom that I purchased way back in the day simply because I could. Since I was strictly a MOC collector it’s remained in the box ever since. The one above that was purchased at discount at a convention because the box sucked. I figured that I could open it up and enjoy it. The final Falcon on the top there was a gift from my parents who saw it at Sam’s Club and got it for me for Christmas. It’s actually my favorite boxed version, because I think it looks neat with the extra characters on top there. I guess that now I’ll have to add two more toys to the sell pile.

Does anyone else have this problem? I mean, do you ever come across a bunch of stuff you realized you didn’t have and even worse, end up with doubles or triples?

Due to the fact that I don’t collect Star Wars figures as much as I used to, I haven’t done many of these round ups. After going through all my figures to pick out ones to sell I’ve becoming interested in Star Wars figures again. Strange how that works. Anyway, I collected a few of my favorite questions from this last round of questions to Hasbro.

Over at Jedi Temple Archives someone is really picky about their orange colored figures:

Jedi Temple Archives: Would you consider a Battle Packs set that would include a take on the 212th Attack Battalion as seen in Revenge of the Sith? And if you did, would you be able to better match the orange color used on the armor so it is more authentic to the film? It almost seems like a no-brainer since the other Battle Packs that have focused on Order 66 have been such great sellers and disappeared quickly, like Betrayal On Felucia or Treachery On Saleucami for example. I am sure collectors and kids alike would love to see these Utapau troopers out again (especially since they have not made it into the Saga Legends line yet). And perhaps you can guarantee collector support if you recolor the orange or provide us with different battle damage applications.

Hasbro: That is a great suggestion for a Battle Pack, and one which we’ll consider for the future. Interesting comment on the orange coloration - we had not heard that one ourselves but will look into it. Thanks.

You know why they hadn’t heard it before? Because nobody with a life gives a shit.

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The following article originally appeared on the Wizard Universe website. Since they purged their archives, I’m mirroring it here.

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I’m no Captain Planet and I hate the new trend to label everything “green”, but I don’t think our society should needlessly waste resources. There always is a bit of talk surrounding toys and their packaging in this regard, due to the fact that some toys create a lot of garbage. I don’t normally think about this issue, but I recently got a hold of of my first Star Wars Evolutions pack* and was pretty much disgusted with the amount of waste. First though, let’s take a look at the package before opening:

Not a bad presentation, but what always bothered me a bit was the size of the box. It’s incredibly long for only the figures. There’s a little note on the box showing that the big square to the left contains additional accessories. I figured with the size of that square you must get some neat stuff.

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You know what I don’t buy any more? Star Wars vehicles from the original movies. There was a period when I went nuts if I found a B-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Bomber, etc., but once I had them in the early ’00s, I was pretty much set. I’m not one to buy several versions of the same vehicle anymore. I’ve somehow grown an unruly lot of Hoth Speeders without really trying and I don’t want to do that again. However, my policy may change when I see a “new” TIE Fighter in stores which is currently in the works. Hasbro has finally gotten around to changing the interior of the classic fighter of the Empire to better resemble the movie model.

They’d made the change to the wings awhile ago by making them much bigger and thereby more movie accurate, but I didn’t want to shell out 40 bucks for the wings. This interior change to the classic TIE is just what it needed. Combine it with the wings and you have a sure fire purchase. The price better not increase for this change though. The TIE isn’t as value packed as many other toys of the same size.

And while we are on the subject, let me share with you with some sadness from my childhood. Even though I had tons of Star Wars toys when I was a kid, I didn’t have a single TIE fighter. It’s strange and very sad to think that I had hours and hours of Star Wars play time without a single epic X-Wing on TIE fighter battle.

There should be some sort of government mandated reparations for that level of suffering.

Fans of the Marvel Universe line (me) may look forward to seeing or most likely not seeing Wave 4 revision one at their local toy shoppe. Not only does it offer some of the more popular characters in the line that you may have missed before, but there’s some nice newer ones as well. May I direct you toward the awesomeness that is Moon Knight? Sweet chickens in heat, I’m going to need to get my hands on him. I’ve always been a fan of Moon Knight, but not really a dedicated reader of his comics until a few years ago. Even if you don’t like the character or what they’ve done with him, you’ve got to love that sweet ass costume.

Other figures I am on the look out for include black Spider-Man as well as the Hand Ninja, both of which I’ve passed on already. Seriously, the combination of not having steady income and these things being around eight dollars makes these purchasing decisions a lot harder. I know I’m a repeating parrot on this issue, but seriously eight dollars is too damned much for a three inch piece of plastic. I’m guessing that army building is a bit on the decline these days due to price and the economy. Anyway, I’m glad that I still have a little time before good old Captain America classic version is available.

You know, back when I decided to revive this blog I never thought I’d have so many “Hey, look what I bought” posts in short amount of time, but thems the breaks. Coming back to the Midwest has had it’s benefits for toy collecting. Northern California was a dead zone for me, so it was nice to return to a land where scalpers aren’t as big of a problem and figure swapping is a relatively unknown phenomena.

On a recent trip I decided to stop at what I like to call the “Magic Target”. The Magic Target has offered up plenty of great prizes over the years. This stop was no exception, because I finally got my hands on the G.I. Joe Sting Raider (a.k.a. Water Moccasin). I’ve been wanting this thing forever and I’ve never spotted it before, which isn’t any kind of surprise considering how crappy the hunting was for me.

The Sting Raider is every bit as cool as I hoped it would be. It’s big enough to fit a few figures, which is always a plus when it comes to my vehicle purchases. Another welcome feature is the extra storage spaces and removable engine cowl for “posing” figures in situations with mechanical difficulty. The movable fan and small torpedo are just icing on the cake. I didn’t need another Copperhead figure, but it’s nice that I have yet another addition to my growing collection of Python Patrol Cobras. Now if only I could get a Python Patrol Sting Raider…

Anyway, any thought I have about the Sting Raider is completely overruled by this video by Last Best Angry Man.

If there’s one thing you can’t do is take the toy collecting out of me apparently. In the final days of packing up everything I own in this world that’s not in storage at my dad’s house (mostly the bulk of my toy collection), I just had to stop over at Target to see what was in stock. To my surprise I found Marvel Universe 3 3/4ths scale Iron Man… classic style! Hells yeah, I’ll take a classic Iron Man over the horrid pile of triangles of the current suit.

Now there were a few other figures that I wanted there as well, most notably the Hulk and the Hand Ninja, but I was good and stuck to the one figure. The 7.99 price point also helped my decision. Seriously, lower the prices on these damn figures and you’ll make up the money, Hasbro.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with my classic Iron Man. I particularly like that he’s been painted in an actual gold color and not yellow. Still, being the idiot that I am I can’t say that I wouldn’t get a repainted version to more accurately reflect the comic. Anyway, Iron Man pretty kick ass. The only downside is that his open palmed wrist can’t be bent upwards to make a great shooting his repulsor pose. I’m also not a fan of the energy blast accessory. I’m not a fan of the oddly shaped energy cyclone, I’d prefer more of a straight on blast, thank you very much.

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It wasn’t really that surprising that Hasbro recently announced that it’s Titanium line would be ending after ‘09. They certainly haven’t seemed as hot as they were when they were first introduced. What went wrong?

I was really into the line when it first came out, but there were a few things that quickly became apparent. Number one was that there was an endless parade of repaints. Secondly, when the line started getting mixed together with Transformers and later Marvel ones by inept retailers, I was pretty much done with the whole thing. It was insane trying to find new Titanium vehicles in a sea of Beastmaster Optimus Prime peg warmers. Another nail in the coffin would certainly have to be price. At six to seven bucks a pop, comparatively speaking they are a pretty low value to other toys in that price range. I’d much rather have a G.I. Joe figure over a metal ship.

Is there anyone else who is going to miss the Titanium Series ships?

Out of all the characters we’ve seen from the upcoming live action G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra flick, the missing key figure was Cobra Commander himself. Well, here he is:

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