Power Rangers Game Face!

I've mentioned before that the whole Power Rangers scene completely passed over me. I have never had any interest in it at all, although I respect the concept of Kaiju battles no matter what format they take.

But when I saw this new Power Rangers villain Game Face on the toy aisles I simply could not pass him by. This guy has got to be one of the most ridiculous action figures of all time and I absolutely love him. I don't care a smidge about Power Rangers, or sports for that matter, but somehow when you mash the two together you make something I can't resist. Weird how that works out sometimes.

Game Face was once a simple retail cash register jockey, but then one day a truck hauling toxic waste smashed into the Dick's Sporting Goods where he was working and BLAM! Game Face!*

*Not actually Game Face's bio but probably a better bio than his real bio.

Game Face is a simple action figure with a football helmet torso, a basketball backboard/net/ball head, soccer and volleyball shoulders, a face in the middle of his belly for no known reason (perhaps that's the actual 'game face' from whence his name derived), and other assorted sports equipment making up or simply glued to his body at regular intervals. The paint apps are limited, articulation is a little above 5 POA due to his hips being swivel and his knees bending but as you can imagine that head don't move at all. Parallel parking must be a bitch, good thing it isn't a sport!

"Anyone for tennis?"

I really need the 6" Brave and the Bold Sportsmaster now to complete my team. The mini McD version is all I have at this time, and he's at a terrible disadvantage because none of his companions want to play...wait for it...MINI GOLF! HAW HAW HAW!

Game Face is on store shelves now as part of the Bandai Power Rangers Dino Charge basic line. Get him or be a big old loser!

Random Toy Pic :: Ben 10

Ben Tennyson is the first Ben 10 figure I've picked up. I love the aesthetic of the aliens and monsters but I've never watched the show and all I know about it is that it's a 'Dial 'H' for Hero' type situation where Ben turns into monsters and stuff because reasons. Whatever, now I have Ben himself so I probably should get a monster or alien or two. Grabbed this guy from a garage sale for about a quarter. I like the character design, he looks like he stepped straight out of the cartoon.

Beetleborg Metallix

I never did get into Power Rangers, so it should come as no surprise that I cared even less about Beetleborgs, which were clearly inspired by/riding the coattails of the Power Rangers back in the nineties.

I suppose what the Beetleborgs had going for them over the Power Rangers was the fact that they weren't running around saying it was time for morphine every ten minutes, But there was that freaky-ass Jay Leno/Joker lovechild running around the Beetleborg universe so any points they gained they just lost ten-fold.

Anyways I do love a lot of the Japanese Kaiju types like Godzilla, as well as the weird guys in rubber suits like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, so when I found a couple Beetleborg toys at the flea market a few months back for super cheap I went ahead and bout them. I originally intended on giving them away or trading them away, but over time they have grown on me. I might still be talked out of them, but these guys do impress me so I have to admit I like them far more than I imagine I'd enjoy their source material were I forced to endure it.

Especially the man in black here, Shadow Borg. He reminds me a lot of Kamen Rider, with his insect helmet and antennae. These toys are exquisitely crafted as well, with lots of articulation and shiny parts galore. I don't have his weapons or any other accessory he may have come with, but he's impressive on his own and I really like the look of him.

Blue Stinger is another of the two Beetleborgs I found that day. I like to think of Blue Stinger as the Jaimie Reyes version of Blue Beetle.

Also loaded down with articulation and shiny bits, Jaimie, I mean Blue Stinger did have that one single accessory stuck to his left wrist. Not sure what it is, maybe a way to attach his weapon to his arm or something.

So there you have it, my Beetleborg Metallix collection. I only know their names and that they were part of the Metallix line because I googled it. Otherwise the only thing I know about Beetleborgs is that Conan O'Brien was up for the role of the Joker but Jay Leno decided he didn't want to give it up after all. And the rest is late night TV history.

Kiss my Astra

Every time I get my hands on a sweet Japanese vinyl figure I'm rocketed back to the first grade and the hours after school when I'd hang out with my friends Justin and Wayne, whose family would send them vinyl kaiju figures from Japan all the time. Crazy looking characters and monsters I didn't recognize from any media I was exposed to in colorful, lightweight vinyl and with limited articulation and so gorgeous and intriguing that I just couldn't resist them no matter how foreign and weird they were to me. I only lived in that neighborhood for a year or so, but I often wish I knew where Justin and Wayne are today and I pray they held on to their epic collection!

Anyways, I found this 1992 Bandai Ultraman character (who a quick Google search tells me is named Astra) at the flea market the other day and couldn't resist taking him home for a quarter.

Astra has a little paint wear but it's ok, his paint apps are so limited to begin with that I can either get over it or get a silver sharpie and fix him right up!

Gobots Scooter

My love for Gobots is no secret, and I think the arguments against them are hilarious. There's no argument against them that can't equally be lobbed right back at Transformers. It's like Marvel fans dogging DC, or Rose Petal Place fans bashing Strawberry Shortcake. Or the Amish bashing Quakers.

Can't we all just get along?

Gobots were one of my top favorite toylines of my youth, and Scooter is one of my favorite Gobots of all time. Sure, a riderless Vespa rolling down the highway and getting shot at by a riderless motorcycle makes about as much sense as a driverless F-1 racer going down the highway being shot at by a personless handgun...while a walkman watches on, ejecting cassettes that turn into birds... (come to think of it, perhaps Gobots were even LESS ridiculous than Transfomers. At least they had the decency to only turn into vehicles!), but to my kid mind the toy Scooter fulfilled all the requirements of a great transforming (or should I say 'going and botting') toy:

'If I had an Autobot symbol you'd love me.'

He had a good looking robot mode, he had a good looking vehicle mode, his transformatio...err..ahem...going to bot-hood...wasn't overly complicated, and he required no extra parts.

From an engineering perspective, this really is a clever 'simple' transformation. It would also be pretty easy to cosplay.

Sadly none of my original Gobots survived in my collection as I marched my way towards adulthood. Honestly, I don't think any of them even made it to my teen years. I got rid of them and my MOTU before Jr. High. A time I was more into 'serious' stuff like Batman and yes, the aforementioned Transformers. Which is also why, at the time, I ignored TMNT. Hahaha oh how naive and stupid I was.

Alas, I have also made little to no effort to reclaim the Gobots, owing to mere chance and the flea market to gather together the ones I have now. Ok, so I did pick up Leader-1 off eBay many years ago, but for the most part I have trusted to chance and cheapness and somehow have amassed a decent collection again, albeit one made up mostly of characters I didn't have as a kid.

There are still characters I really do want to own again, like Pathfinder and Cy-Kill (I do have his Super Gobot version), and characters I need a better specimen of than the rough ones I've chanced upon, like my second favorite Gobot of all time: Turbo.

And of course there's the Gobot Command Center, which I will probably never find in decent condition for as cheap as I am willing to spend on it. But for the most part my Gobot collection has come back together nice and quiet like, and I'm surprised it's as robust as it is today. I really should get them all together for a photo shoot!

As for finding Scooter; that's a whole story unto itself!

We were at the Goodwill Bargain Barn on Valentine's Day, cuz that's how we roll around here. If you don't know what the Goodwill Bargain Barn is...imagine if you took your local Goodwill, removed the good stuff, ran it over with a bulldozer, then let folks dig through the rubble and charged them by the bagful.

Or imagine a bomb went off at a hoarder's house, and the bomb also blew up the neighbor's garage and the junk yard on the other side of the block; and then someone took a snow shovel and scooped everything into large industrial bins and said you could have a bag of whatever you wanted for five bucks, you merely had to brave the bins and tetanus and the homeless people digging through the bins next to you and probably some living in them too.

Yeah, it's a little bit like that.

So I'm digging through a bin with toys, what were once toys, what should never have been toys, broken glassware, and lots of unsafe levels of lead when I came across some Gobots. Broken Gobots. I mean REALLY broken Gobots. Like, die-cast metal split into pieces, arms broken (not missing or removed, but literally sheared off), multiple missing pieces...it was a massacre. I want to believe that someone's 'parts bin' had ended up at the Goodwill but I just couldn't imagine anyone keeping anything in the condition many of these guys were in. It was heartbreaking.

Then I found half of Scooter. Literally, his top half. No legs. But also...no 'breakage', just...legs missing. I had a glimmer of hope that I might dig some more and find the legs and that I could simply unscrew the lower torso and re-assemble him. This was after seeing the Cy-Kill with two sheared arms and the Leadrer-1 missing an arm, a leg and his fuselage.

What can I say, I'm an optimist in my prime. GET IT?!?! HAW HAW HAW!

Anyhoo, as you have probably surmised by now, I did find his legs, and it was a simple matter of two separate parts having become disengaged, and not an instance of actual breakage. So along with a bunch of other stuff in my bag of trash, I tossed both halves of Scooter. And upon returning home I got a small screwdriver and voila! HE'S BAAAACK

I also found this rider, who ironically is in perfect scale with Scooter!

I'm not sure exactly, the guy seems very familiar to me, but I think he originally came with a motorcycle that had a zip-pull feature. You could zip the line and shoot the motorcycle across the floor while this rider clung on for dear life (or more likely flung off to your sheer delight.)

He rolls at a different speed now.

Flea Market Finds

I don't usually go to the flea market on Sundays. I prefer the smaller scale, less pressure Saturday trips. But I found myself completely on my own yesterday and decided 'what the heck.' It was crowded, and vendors tend to be less fond of making deals on Sundays, but it turned out to be totally worth it!

I'm apparently on a roll with the 2007 CGI TMNT animated movie action figures, having found Karai to add to the Casey, April and Foot Ninja from a couple weeks back. Still no sign of the Turtles themselves though! I also found 'Gen' who's action figure is from the 2004 TMNT cartoon, but the character is from the Usagi Yojimbo comics (which I absolutely love!) The figure has a terrible action feature (more on that later) but I have wanted this figure ever since I read Usagi Yojimbo and learned of this figures existence (long after he had been on the toy store shelves.)

I bought the Imaginext parrot and toucan because they were bagged with the Imaginext bat. My intern will have to absorb those into her Imaginext jungle collection (even though she already has them) and the bat will hang out (haha get it?) with the Batman themed Imaginext stuff we have all over the place. I also found one half of the Teen Titans team 'Mas and Menos.' I found Mas. Now I will forever be on the hunt for Menos, but had I passed on Mas I would probably find ten Menoses in the next three days. That's how things go.

Then there's this newer Imaginext Robin. I already have this sculpt which came with his Mech Suit, but their costumes are colored differently, so this one can be Jason Todd. I still hate the fact that he doesn't have a cape, but I do like this sculpt.

Finally, a toddler Donatello staff. I already have one of these (what I need are toddler Leo and toddler Raph's weapons) but you don't see this stuff often so I grabbed it. And then there's Cyborg's robot hand from Teen Titans. This must have been an accessory or perhaps part of a figurine set. Whichever the case, it's pretty awesome.

Ultraman Zero

I know little about Ultraman and other Japanese characters but I do know I love me some Japanese characters.

When I was in early Elementary School, I had a couple neighbor friends whose mother was Japanese, and their family would mail them so many cool vinyl action figures. They were essentially as basic as the then standard Star Wars 5-POA but were a little bit larger and represented so manny weird and wonderful looking aliens and robots. At the time I knew...Godzilla. And that was about it (besides other giant monsters appearing in Godzilla flicks.)

Anyways, now I am an adult but any time I see a toy that represents that basic Japanese vinyl aesthetic I flip and want it - especially when it costs less than a buck!

Other than some Japanese script, on the foot of this guy is written 'Bandai 2009' so I was able to discover he is 'Ultraman Zero.' I don't know what that means in the Ultraman universe and I don't care. He's awesome.

That's it.

Teen Titans Wildebeest Action Figure

Wildebeest, from the Bandai Teen Titans action figure line.

This guy is cool in such a ridiculous way. A mutant Gnu - what's not to love? I know nothing about him, but was able to find some wikis about his comicbook versions as well as this Teen Titans cartoon version. I had originally assumed he was a villain, but apparently he was a Teen Titan ally, at least in the cartoon.

Wildebeest is a little roughed up with a couple chipped spots on his paint. No wait: 'Battle scars.'  Aw yeah!

He originally came with a club accessory, but of course mine is missing his weapon.

I recently found this guy at my local thrift store. He only cost fifty cents, so I can handle the battle scars. In fact, this is the second Wildebeest I've found at that thrift store. But the first one I found a couple years ago  was in such terrible filthy gunked-up shape that I had no option but to pass on him. Seriously, he was disgusting. But I always wanted to find him in good shape after that, and it finally happened.

Robins of Toyriffic Past :: Robin Week Concludes

All good things must end, including Robin Week. But if you haven't had enough of that red, green and yellow kid's stuff, check out a sampling of  Toyriffic's past Robin posts!

Batman Returns Tim Drake Robin.


DCUC Robin and DCUC predecessor 6" Batman line Robin.



Toybiz Robin.

The New Batman Adventures Robin.


Redbird by Corgi.

Teen Titans Red X Robins.



DC Infinite Heroes Earth 2 Robin (with DCIH Tim Drake Robin.)

Three cheers for the original kid sideckick!

Bandai Teen Titans Robin Variants :: Robin Week

I wasn't paying any attention to the Teen Titans cartoon or toyline when it was originally released. That's not entirely true - I did pick up a Speedy off the shelves. Otherwise I didn't bother with the Bandai toyline until I started finding them at the flea market and thrift stores years later. Scale is all over the place, and some of the sculpts are pretty off-model, but it was a fun line with a lot of different hero and villain characters released.

In fact, some of the figures saw multiple releases, and variations as the toys evolved and tried to get closer to their cartoon counterparts.

I believe this version of Robin, with a larger anime head, was the first sculpt released. I found this guy at the flea market a couple weeks ago and his paint is a little rough, but he's still a fun figure to have around.

I believe this version of the Teen Titan Robin, with the smaller, more 'animated' head, came later. This guy belongs to my oldest daughter - we've had him for a few years and she doesn't play with him anymore, so he now resides in my collection. For safe-keeping, of course!

Having no emotional connection to the cartoon these figures are based on, I can't say I have a preference for one over the other. They are both fun and uniquely stylized versions of Robin, and that's cool enough for me!

Red X Robin 5" Action Figure

I try to grab up Teen Titan action figures whenever I see them for cheap at the flea market or yard sales. I never really followed this toyline or the cartoon, but one character I am pretty fond of is Red X. Red X was initially Dick Grayson Robin in disguise, and I believe he later appeared shrouded in mystery with the possibility that Jason Todd had adopted this guise.

I've had the two smaller versions for some time, so I was ecstatic to find the larger version at a yard sale a couple weeks ago. Originally he would have had a 'unmasked' (yet still masked) Robin head, but I did not get that piece. for the twenty five cents this guy set me back, I really can't complain.

This larger Red X is really well articulated, much moreso than his miniature counterparts.

I really like the costume design of Red X. I'd love to see it adopted into official comic book canon, perhaps as a disguise used by Damian Wayne or something. Or even as a lone, mysterious vigilante; or sidekick to Deathstroke (Deathstroke Jr.).

Hero World Voice Comm Cyborg by Fisher Price

I found this Fisher-Price Hero World Voice Comm Cyborg at Marshalls a couple weeks ago.

Even though my Hero World collecting has been very selective, I wanted this Teen Titan teammate to go along with my Hero World Robin. And discovering this figure came as quite a surprise, as I've seen no mention of his existence anywhere online! Not even as a 'look what they won't be releasing because they canceled the line!' post in some random chat room ('chat room' hahaha I'm showing my age!)

This Cyborg is completely off everyone's radar. He's stealth Cyborg!

There is a non Voice Comm version that was released with an ATV near the end of the standard Hero World line, but that figure is a completely different sculpt from this one, not to mention that this Voice Comm version speaks with the push of a button and interacts with other Voice Comm figures and vehicles.

Like with the Hero World Robin, I don't believe this Cyborg ever hit regular retail. Marshalls, like Ross and Big Lots, is a closeout retailer that pushes stuff at discount prices after picking up unsold product from mainstream retailers and manufacturers. Big Lots has recently stocked Hero World and Voice Comm figures, so Marshalls must have gotten their hands on some as well. That being said, I've seen no sign of Cyborg at Big Lots (where I found Robin) and at Marshalls there was no sign of any other figure besides Cyborg (of which they had two.)

The DC Super Friends Hero World line (and it's Voice Comm sequel) should have been much more of a success, but suffered a bit of retail mishandling and bad luck. Also, the shift from Hero World to Voice Comm was ill timed and helped lead to the premature death of the line. There was also the Imaginext 'redundancy' - two pre-school hero lines in different scales may have been too much for parents - which is why I believe the Voice Comm angle was brought on to begin with, to give greater delineation between lines.

That said I personally believe the biggest hiccup was Hero World's focus on Green Lantern characters. The movie was expected to be huge but flopped (and the cartoon never got it's rightful footing either), causing dozens of Hero World Hals, Kilowogs and Tomar Res to languish on Toys R Us shelves to this day. Ironically the Atrocitus / Dexx-Star and Sinestro / B'Dg sets disappeared from shelves fast due to fan popularity, but were never given the chance to be restocked because retailer shelves were choked with Hals that no one wanted. There is also speculation that these figures (or at least the Atrocitus/Dexx-Stars) were pulled by Fisher-Price because of their violent nature, but I don't think that happened. I just think collectors grabbed them up and production halted when the retailer orders didn't come back for more. These might have also been Toys R Us exclusive and made in lesser quantities, but I've never met anyone else who has one of them so I can't ask them where they bought theirs!

In addition, the other retailers that carried the line were subsequently cautious when Hero World released characters like Hawkman, Aquaman, Flash and the first release of Cyborg, and those characters didn't have the chance to hit stores in very large quantities or get the advantage of being restocked once they sold out. To add insult to injury, all of these characters were being shipped to retailers when Hero World 'ended' and evolved into Voice Comm, which retailers didn't order much of either due to their languishing Hero Worlders.

This type of thing really fascinates me. It's like the end of the Muppet movie where (if memory serves me) Kermit and Fozzie are reading the credits, and Fozzie (or maybe it's Gonzo?) says 'Who cares' and Kermit says something like 'They all have mothers.' I know I'm way off but I think you get the gist. The fact is, someone designed this toy, someone recorded their voice for this toy, etc. etc., and someone has to care that it exists, dammit!

I also just like Cyborg. The Teen Titans cartoon version is my favorite (even though I was never a huge fan of the cartoon) and I have a few of his Bandai likenesses too.

This Fisher-Price Cyborg comes with a cool energy blaster type gun...

...and maybe these are  handcuffs, or some sort of wrench or mechanical grabbers like you see on UHF after midnight or if you aren't reading this in 1983, maybe at an 'As Seen on TV' store.

Voice Comm Cyborg is copyright 2012, but like I said before I don't think he has seen the light of retail until now. Good luck finding him if you're interested. He may be an anomoly, or he may suddenly clog pegs everywhere. Who knows?

Only the Shadow knows!

Booyah!

Terra-ble Twos!

 Last weekend's Bandai Teen Titans action figures finds yielded both versions of Terra!

I thought my daughter already had this version of Terra in her Teen Titans uniform, but we were unable to find it when we looked, so it's a good thing I grabbed this one. She's as basic as all the standard Teen Titan action figures...

 ...but since this is a later release, she looks more like her cartoon counterpart than the first release of Raven did!

Eventually Bandai got their act together and started busting out some real good looking figures; pretty much right before the line was canned.

Typical.

This version of Terra, in her traitorous Deathstroke affiliation outfit is an excellent likeness with a dynamic pose to boot. My daughter did already have this version of Terra, so this one will be added to my own collection!

I love finding these Bandai Teen Titan action figures at the flea market. They are so simple but quite charming, and as I mentioned before, the later releases to the line were actually some pretty darn good looking figures; like this Terra, Speedy, Red X and the later release of Cyborg. The only Teen titan figure I actually bought at retail was Speedy, but I do wish I had paid closer attention to the line when they were new, it would be nice to have the accessories for some of these guys! I also recall news that there was a planned release of the Doom Patrol, but the cartoon and toyline were cancelled before they got those figures made. Too bad, I would have definitely loved to have those action figures!

That's So Raven(s)

I haven't seen any Bandai Teen Titans figures at the flea market in a long time, then today I found about six, from two separate vendors. It's funny how these things cycle around.  I even left a couple behind because they would have been doubles (or triples) and I just didn't need to buy them ALL, especially right before Christmas!

I did grab a couple that my daughter already has but that I don't have of my own, because they don't pop up that often, and was able to get a couple we didn't have as well, including the first version of Raven:

This version of Raven is pretty far off-model, but quaint in a 'toy for kids not collectors' sort of way.

She actually doesn't look that bad at this angle. She looks nothing like her cartoon counterpart, but not bad nonetheless.

I also picked up another of the later version of Raven. My daughter already has this one, but I didn't. As you can see, Bandai used the exact same mold from the neck down, and only updated her head. Which is fine, because the figure's body design was simple but effective, and it was that face that needed fixing the most.

The difference from Raven 1.0 is striking; Raven 2.0 looks just like her cartoon counterpart.

As a bonus, Raven 1.0 was wearing a removable hood/cape when I found her. I don't know if Raven 2.0 also came with the hood/cape, I've never found either version of her with a cape until today, but I swapped it over and she looks even better now! Yay!