Random As Rhyme

This past weekend I moved in with my girlfriend, and to her disdain my Transformers collection came with me. I’ve been meaning to blog about my collection for awhile and since I had to unpack this was my best opportunity to do so.

About half way through taking the pictures Lyndsey took over, but I don’t think you will notice the transition.

This book is all that remains of my childhood Transformers collection. That makes it 20-22 years old. I plan to scan it and post it’s contents as a blog similar to what I did with BMX in Action 1987.

These are my newer comic books. The first book is a collection of the greatest battles between Optimus Prime. It’s a pretty decent collection of stories and a few are mentioned in the 10 most notable deaths of Optimus Prime over on Topless Robot.

The rest of the comics are newer DW versions, these ones all have pretty stellar artwork with the GI Joe cross over being the best of the bunch. The Transformers have never looked better in print before this series.

The last one at the bottom is a prequel to the movie that my friend Grant picked up on free comic book day.

These 20-22 year old UK exclusive comics ended up in my hands courtesy of my friend Maz who lives in Scotland. Over about the course of a year she would find comics (lord knows how or where) and mail them to me randomly. It was a pretty rad thing of her to do and I am glad to have them in my collection.

I have too many Transformers movies, or I should say too many different copies of the same movies. Of the 5 picured there is only 3 different feature length amounts of content, and the Ultimate Battle one sucks (too much Armada).

Worst yet is I still don’t have all of the bonus features of the new film I am missing the one that has the Transforming case.

This is the only thing in my collection that I made. It took a long time to finish but I am now the only person who has an Autobot symbol made of Perler beads that doesn’t suck.

This is my group of normal size Autobots and one Megatron. In order of appearance: Blue streak (G1* reproduction), Megatron (G2* Ultimate battle version), Sandstorm (Original 1986 triple changer), Jazz (G1 heroes mini bot), and Sideswipe (G1 Reproduction).

(G1 = Generation 1 [1984-1991] G2 = Generation 2[1992-?])

Alternate Modes:

Blue streak was a gift from Lyndsey, and actually re kick started my figure collection, Megatron, Jazz, and Sideswipe I bought (Sideswipe from Value Village hence the missing tires) and my friend Rachel gave me Sandstorm for Christmas one year.

Next is my collection of arguably everyone’s favorite, and most famous Transformer Optimus Prime. I have three so far, and I plan to get at least one more.

From left to right; Ultimate Battle Optimus Prime (Boxset with the Megatron above and the Ultimate Battle DVD), 20th (movie) Anniversary Optimus Prime, and Powermaster Optimus Prime (1988).

My brother gave me the 20th anniversary Prime but I bought the other two. The Powermaster version was actually purchased to replace the one I had stolen from me as a child (kid asked to borrow it then moved the next day) so I am really glad to have one back in my possession.

This shot is pretty cool since it shows the discrepancies between how Optimus Prime has been represented as a toy over the years, I guess it was up to toy manufactures discretion as to what artwork they used to base the toy molds on.

Powermaster Prime also folds out into a cool battle station, with Hi-q Transforming into a little robot to man the guns.

That’s the sum of my collection right now minus the Movie game for ps2, seven or so Transformer shirts and a beat up Powermaster Optimus (cab) that sits on my desk from work.

One day I hope to have a bit bigger of a collection (nothing in the million dollar range) and a nice display case to put them in. But until then they sit in a cubby in the entertainment unit as a reminder to my gf that shes dating a nerd.

This week I thought I would write about something I always wanted that my best friend growing up had. These situations where always pretty tough to deal with, I mean on the one hand you loved your best friend.

He was the one who convinced you throwing tennis balls at your neighbors IROC-Z to set off the alarm was a good idea, then ran and hid while you got in trouble.

He was also the one who said your endo sucked so you went faster and went over the bars and knocked out half your tooth.

He was the one who helped you throw snowballs at local neighbor hood girls ruining their self esteem forever.

Ya Andrew was awesome.

However when it came to this one thing, he had it I didn’t, I secretly hated him for it.

What was it?

Behold!

Voltron!

At the time, I don’t think I actually watched the original Voltron on tv, or knew much about it. [Note: The person talking in the intro is Optimus Prime or Peter Cullen]

Actually this might have been a hand me down from his older brother. Regardless, it was an awesome toy.

Apart it was 5 lions like below

But together it was the fantastic robot you see above, so really it was six toys in one.

It’s combined physical size of it meant that in our action figure wars waged in VHS tape built battle fields, my Ninja Turtles where easily slain, and even my beloved (and later stolen) Power Master Optimus Prime was no match for the might of Voltron.

So he pretty much always won I might have even created a no Voltron rule at some point just to save face.

While I pretty much needed Voltron in my army, I don’t actually recall asking my parents to buy me one,or trying to buy one myself. For some reason I had it in my head that Andrew would grow bored of it one day and give it to me for being a loyal friend, and then glory would be mine.

Obviously that never actually happened, and sounds idiotic today, but I was young and dumb, as opposed to being old and dumb now.

One day I will probably purhcase a Voltron figure off ebay and and it to my collection of 80s toys that is currently made up of mostly Transformers, but until then. It’s something I have always wanted.