Toy Purchases August 2012

Whelp, I'm still a whole year behind chronicling my collecting habits, lol.

Thinking back, I remember August 2012 being a very slow purchasing month for me. I think that after the insane experience of trying to tackle San Diego Comic-con and grab the SDCC Bruticus set, I was a little burnt out on toys. That being said, I picked up a few things that I had preordered at Big Bad Toy Store and also took one last stab at grabbing some vintage toys from TFSource so i could send some of the Source Points I had accumulated.




The biggest thing I picked up was the release of Maketoys Green Giant (the second 3rd-party Devastator). I specifically went for Green Giant instead of TFC Hercules because of 3 main points. The first was the design. I loved the more anime streamlined design of the separate robots as well as their combined mode. The vehicles also had a certain uniformity that really resonated with me. My second reason for picking up Green Giant over Hercules was quality. While Maketoys was a relative new comer to the scene, TFC has been around for a while and the quality of the plastic and designs are hit and miss. Additionally, TFC released their figures separately over 6 months prior to Green Giant being released and it was reported that Hercules had numerous design and assembly defects, including bad joints and miss assembled figures. The third reason was pricing. At over $100 a figure, the TFC set would set a collector back $650. Green Giant was $360.

While Hercules is a larger figure, in both combined and separate robot modes, I stand by my choice that Green Giant is the better toy. In addition to the standard accessories and combiner parts, he comes with an alternate head that lights up. Also the separate guns from the individual robots combine to become the larger combiner robots main gun. He's a great toy and I dare say probably the best 3rd party robot made to date. He feels and looks better than Fansproject's Corss Fire robot set. Green Giant is a must for any serious Transformer collector.

I also picked up two Japanese Arms Micron Transformers in August, including  Autobot Swerve and the Tokyo Toy Show Exclusive Terrocon Bumble Bee. Both of these purchased were a little frivolous and impulse buys to be honest. Autobot Swerve was purchased because I loved the Arms Micron Breakdown figure that he is based on. They swapped out the head and changed the color palette to Swerves G1 colors, dark red and white. Overall, he's a pretty good figure and I decided I wanted to collect all the Transformers Prime characters, even the non show cannon ones. The only bad thing was, as I described in some of my earlier posts, his head actually broke right out of the package. His neck joint snapped off when I separated him from his zip tie inner cardboard backing. I was pretty bummed out about this and I decided to put him down and leave him where he lay for a night before returning to try and either fix the problem or return him to Big Bad Toy Store.

After a good nights rest, I picked him up and decided I could fix his shattered neck joint. Using a pin and a ton of glue, I refashioned a new neck and securely reinforced the joint. I crossed my fingers and snapped his head back into place. After letting the glue dry, I did a few test swivels and the head was as good as new, probably better considering that new meant broken in this case. Also, his Arms Micron partner is a pretty sweet chain saw weapons too. ^_^

Terrorcon Bumble Bee is a weird oddity. He was a Tokyo Toy Show 2012 Takara Tomy Show Exclusive and the figure I believe references a episode of Prime where Bumble Bee was taken over by the consciousness of Megatron. The packaging make reference of Soundwave somehow converting Bumble Bee into a Decpeticon. Either way he's a black and purple repaint of the regular Prime Robots in Disguise Bumble Bee with the auto transformation gimmick. I think this figure looks pretty cool. It takes on of the most iconic Transformers and literally changes him into a pretty badass looking Decepticon. Terrorcon Bumble Bee comes with Soundwave's Arms Micro partner, which transforms from scorpion to some laser whip weapon. Final word - impressive.

Other than that I picked up a the Kabaya Fortress Maximus set and assembled him. Judging from the assembled figure, he's a pretty good approximation to the original G1 gigantic robot. The Kabaya version stands about 6 inches tall and can fully transform from city, to ship, to robot mode. He comes with both guns and the god sword. Additionally, he has a mini head master that forms his head and a mini Wind Charger and Power Glide figures. These mini figures measure less than a inch high and can limitedly transform from robot to vehicle. Pretty cool miniaturization in this set.

From the TFSource haul, I decided to pick up a few vintage figures which included a mint in box Beast Wars Thunderwing, Transformers Cybertron Overhaul (which I forgot I actually already owned, ugh), 2 Transformers Universe mini bots, Brawn and Beachcomber, and a G1 Deluxe Insecticon Chop Shop. Out of all these bots, really the only one of consequence is Beast Wars  Tiger Hawk. I missed out on him originally when he was out in the stores back in 1999. I finally decided to pick him up and scratch him off my to get list. It's kind of weird to look back at a Beast Wars era Transformer. At the time, Tiger Hawk was one of the most sought after figures in the last wave of toys. He and Transmetal 2 Black Arachnia demand top dollar on the secondary market and they were both extremely hard to find in the stores. I think I saw him a few times but at the time, he was a pretty expensive figure at retail and I believe I had a  ton of my money tied up with the Mobile Suit Gundam In Action figure line that just launched. In the end I'm glad I picked him up but opening him and looking back in time to a 13 year old toy is a little hard to take in. While he was state of the art then, he's a total crappy happy meal type toy now. Ah wells, now I just need to get Beast Wars Scorponok and I can finally close the door on this collecting chapter.

*Image Courtesy of Seibertron.com