A few frustrations at the current state of collecting...

A few frustrations I have as a collector mostly toward Hasbro...am I crazy?  Does anyone else feel this way?

1. Collecting a simple line is next to impossible for years now if you like Star Wars or Transformers and want to buy product from the big 3 (Target, TRU and Walmart)

2. Why do retailers overstock and continue to overstock garbage waves that no one buys...TVC Phantom Menace...40 dollar Star Wars vehicles that sit and sit...Year of the Horse OP...like dozens of him?

3. Why won't retailers put every figure from a wave on their online site?  Even if they don't have it...can they at least acknowledge that somewhere in one of their stores carries said figure? (e.g. every Black Series figure past wave 1 or Transformers legends class...)

4. Seriously, why can't they do #3?  Tailgate...Skrapnel...SWERVE!?!?! Where are these Goddamned figures???

5. Why doesn't HASBROTOYSHOP.COM have it's own products listed?  Forget preorders (which makes no sense that they refuse to do that one).  Why can I not order a product directly from them and have to wait...up to 6 months for a figure that apparently has been on ebay for half a year to show up in my local stores?  Do you just not like making money?

6. KMART and now WALGREENS exclusives? WTF? When I think Walgreens, I think collectible toys. Why don't you fix your relationship with an actual TOY SELLER like Toy's R Us before you broaden to drug stores.

7. Angry Birds....Transformers....because the star wars shit I've seen sitting on clearance for months wasn't a big enough red flag that this is a line to satiate a call NO ONE ever asked for.  Honestly, what target market are you  trying to hit?  It's like you hate your true blue collectors so much that you are trying to make the shelf space for actual Toys (action figures) that aren't stuffed animals, or board games, or dice games or whatever stupid ass minifigure game you are shilling that nobody wants so small that we just all give up.  It worked for me and Star Wars, I'm currently selling off my modern figures out of disgust.

8. Why are your waves so random?  Remember "Collect 'em All!" That concept doesn't even exist anymore! Collect 'em All...why? So I can recreate that scene where that one single Jabba Skiff Guard fought Hoth Luke while a Clone Trooper watched?  Put some shit out with at least a speck of continuity!

9.  Playsets aren't cost feasible yet a 70.00 Slave 1 Amazon exlusive or a Linkin Park Soundwave is?

10. Why do you refuse to make commercials?

11.  Why are you creating a line of dumbed down transformers?  You already have a line for little kids called rescue bots sold in the ages 1-3 section but we need easy change bots for older kids now?  What is going on?

12. Do you honestly know you suck this hard that 3rd parties from every direction are stepping up to deliver on the vacuum you've created in demand for two of the greatest toy lines ever produced???

13. Why did you effectively let G.I. Joe die on the table?

I realize that as an adult collector I make up maybe 1/20th of the market as a generous guess but here's the thing.  If you want the other 19/20ths of toy buying children to foster a love of your lines and toys the way we do it's real simple...take your business model from the 80's and copy that.  Stop changing everything for the worse.  Stop showing up at toy shows to tell everyone what new great stuff you're planning and then doing as little as possible to make those products reach your customers.  Seriously, I'm excited as hell over your combiners but then I thought..like I'd ever find 6 separate figures stocked anywhere near me unless I plan to pay 20 percent more from an online retailer or sky's the limit from a scalper on ebay.

Am I alone? Anyone? Anyone? 

Toy Review: Transformers - Generations: Cosmos and Payload (Legends Class)... and Hasbro minirant

Transformers Generations: Cosmos and Payload (Legends Class)


I picked this small set up a few weeks back at my local Target and have been meaning to do something with these guys.  I originally wanted to pick up Swerve, Tailgate and Shrapnel...oh right, Skrapnel (whatever).  So far, this has been a bit hard.

 

Sufficed to say, the newer generations legends class figures are rare as hell to find.  I actually HELD a Swerve and Flanker in my hand and put it back on the shelf thinking...ah, well the fact that he's sitting in Target means we're done with the Starscream, Megatron, Bumblebee, Optimus waves that have been pegwarming for a year now...to my chagrin only discovered on my next visit with intent to buy that not only Swerve was long gone but THREE racks were filled with Optimus Legends figures....which have sat now for about a month.

Seriosuly (mini-rant) but again, Hasbro, why do you have this ball-itching quality to compulsively clog your toy lines with pegwarmers at every turn while refusing to properly distribute lines of figures people want...first of all...NOBODY wants a tiny Optimus Prime that's Bumblebee sized! Let alone three racks of him.  What are you thinking? Even from a little kid's perspective..."Hmmm...do I want a tiny little OP or this nice sized chromed out one with a full sized Grimlock for fifteen extra dollars or a nice foot tall AoE figure for 5 bucks more?"  So you do this...while you develop an honestly great run of original sculpts with great paint and package art which coincide with a great IDW series and just refuse to distribute them and not carry them on your own website...but to add insult to injury state you plan to offer repaints of the exact same pegwarmers! (a la Nemesis Prime and Cliffjumper which I can only hope are ways to pawn off the overstock of wave 1 figures which would be smart but probably is incorrect)...This is on top of offering stupid "exclusive" TRU Masterpiece variants like Acid Storm who sat for a whole year and is on clearance now or (now upcoming) Sunfire.   We still haven't gotten a MP Thrust, Dirge or Ramjet which I would jump at for any of them.  Or how about the garish and tacky Gold and Transparent "year of the horse" Optimus Prime...Why not just re-releasing MP-01 that everyone is dying to get another shot at since even the KO without the trailer is going for 110.00 on ioffer.com?  Nah, let's clog the stores with a giant expensive shelf jammers while short supplying desired products like MP Soundwave and super-undersupplying MP Grimlock...honestly, did he even make it to some stores after his whole half hour that he was posted on TRU.com for sale.  TRU just pulled this shit with preorders for leader class Jetfire who was on the site for a whole 3 days before they removed the sale.  If the figure isn't even released yet, why can't the sellers just take indefinite preorders and send the numbers to the supplier for fulfillment... does Hasbro and Toy's  R Us just NOT like making money???

OK, I'm done.

The figure is a great, albeit, super hard to find Legends Class figure. The Universe line also put out a remake of this cool minibot but I just never felt like shelling the 20 plus on him on ebay.  This little guy is a perfect update of the original G1 version that really left much to be desired.  I know Takara and Hasbro were working with what undiscerning buyers deemed acceptable back in the 80's hence such an awkward little original figure but this guy is truly an Action figure meaning you can pose him and he has positionable arms, legs and waist!  The first guy as with many of the G1 line could do just about one thing in bot mode...stand up straight and/or point a gun if he was packed with on and has a peghole in his hand which wasn't always the case.

This version of Cosmos has an added bonus, he's also a very small targetmaster as he is packed with a cannon Targetmaster named Payload who transforms into a space shuttle which is an awesome touch I love with this new line of Legends.  He's simple but detailed and makes for a nice extra addition with an almost too simple transformation between weapon, bot and ship but nothing out of the ordinary for a mini-con or micromaster.  

 

Figure-wise, Cosmos is a great build with a lot of articulation for a figure his size, great paint detailing and tons of grooves, engine detailing, and paneling on his ship mold.  The ship has some cool grey cannons on the bottom, three windows on the front, a tail rudder with tow yellow engines.  Snazzy. 

 In Bot-mode, he has nice sturdy hands and feet with ball jointed legs, a rotating waist and articulation at the elbows and knees.  For a little guy, he looks like he can pack a punch.  His paint is very nice with bright yellows and greens with some extra care put into his face. (as expressionless as it is)  Even payload has a couple colors in there with nice attention to detail, especially on his ships front window paneling.

If you can find this pair, grab them up or prepare to get fleeced on Evil-bay.

Hasbro, you did it again....

I read the news today, oh boy....

Just saw on KG's Vintage Collection page as per the source Flyguy.com's page, if you are looking to purchase the last wave of the soon to be "indefinitely discontinued" Vintage Collection figures (Weequay, Nien Numb, Lumat, Royal Guard, Prune Face...and a bunch of prequel b.s.)  you better get out your credit card and be ready to buy an entire wave all at once.  More after the jump.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly News - Star Wars - Battle Beasts - Transformers - lego LOTR

A lotta info has been dropping over the past week with the various SDCC showcases and developer booths.  Here are a few of the prime information pieces I picked up over my scrolling of numerous blogs, sites and pages. 

Love these sets!...totally remind me of the Speeder Bike box from the 80's!

The biggest bummer I read was yesterday when my very fears as spelled out in my previous Vintage Collection Post apparently is coming true.  Hasbro has announced that the Vintage Collection is going on Hiatus (pretty much cancelled)  and being replaced by "Droid Factory" figures.  Whatever their BS reasoning is, we all know it's due to their absolutely soulless and money driven push for forcing an inflated wave of unpopular action figures geared at young children into their only true adult series of figures which, in turn, sold horribly and as a result the fans will now suffer.   I called this a week ago and this was something I really didn't want to be right about.   Not only this but I noticed at the showcase photos and on rebelscum.com that they are also shoehorning in two CLONE WARS figures as well into the Vintage Collection!  While we're at it, how about we start making animated looking classic figures and flooding the Clone Wars line?  Wouldn't that be great?

I LOVE the B and W drawings on the back of the old vehicle packages!

Now we're talking!!!

The silver lining is that there are some very nice figures and sets coming out but even these aren't without some major issues.  On the forums at Starwars-figuren.com, I managed to find some leaked photos of the Vintage Collection AT-AT ROTJ packaging and what really stands out is that there is a VC Speeder Bike and Scout in the corner! ***correction, Rebelscum just posted Hasbro's display of the new speeder and it is not the previous pic on the AT-AT box***   This really looks like the end all be all speeder bike for anyones collection...corrrected petals, newer looking scout, detailing all over, great handlebars.  We finally will have a speeder bike that looks like the pilot is really riding it!



Also, there have been some showings of the new Toys R Us K-Mart exclusive Ewok Scout Pack and AT-ST driver pack.  Nice renditions of harder to get figures and I absolutely love the AT-ST driver.  Always have.   Above is a pic of the Toys R Us exclusive Ewok figure set and a few shots of the last wave of VC figures including Nien Numb, Weequay, Imperial Royal Guard, Lumat and Prune Face.

There are also a pair of 3-pack exclusives from Target which, in total, have 3 new figures adding the VC ranks.  This also pissed me off because, in all honesty, there is absolutely no reason why Hasbro couldn't have released Snaggletooth, Death Star Droid and the Power Droid on their own vintage card-backs but instead are gouging fans now for having to either rebuy R5-D4 or both Boba Fett and Tusken Raiser (Why is Boba Fett in a New Hope set with two Tatoonie characters? Lazyyyyyy, Hasbro)  I'm telling you Hasbro is out to get you, VC collectors.

 
Also, Battle Beasts News posted on their page some info regarding the Diamond Select Minimates Battle Beasts figures and I'm starting to think I'm going to be dodging this collection.  I'm sorry but these figures just don't look like Battle Beasts....they look more like any random anthropomorphized animistic set of heroes and villains from any 90's cash-grab cartoon. (and not one of the better ones)  Also, there are some pictures of random people in this set...I'm not sure if this is a mistake or what is going on here.  We haven't seen everything so maybe this still may work but I kinda lost my enthusiam when I saw the Insectoid with the Goat figure for the SDCC exclusive set.  All I'm thinking is, I'm way more likely to gravitate toward the Takara Beast Saga (although pricier) when I go for reboot Battle Beasts figures. *Photos from 16.bit.com*

On an added note, I just saw some pics of the new Transformers: Fall of Cybertron wave 2 figures at Seibertron.com...still need to grab that pretty cool Shockwave just for the bot mode.  We will be graced with Grimlock, Blaster and Steeljaw...noice! (hit the link to see more)

On top of that, Lego Asia linked the amazing cool Bag End Lego set to tie in with the upcoming Hobbit movie...if any lego set needed to be made associated with Lego LOTR/the Hobbit I'd say anything Shire captures the win!  Now all we need is The Dead City and the Black Gate of Mordor and I'll be even more broke. :)

MAD AS HELL: The broken state of the Vintage Collection

Target on the left, TRU on the right...Even with 25% off, Toys R Us still can't get rid of them...

First and foremost, I'm telling you all right now this is a rant.   This is a current break from pleasant musings, toy reviews and pop culture nostalgic nuggets to sway into some official nerd rage.  I've just about given up on the Star Wars: Vintage Collection line from Hasbro and pretty much Hasbro in general.  That's it.  I've had it.  I relatively rekindled my flame of interest within collecting, toys and memorabilia and even from last year of attempting to rebuild my Joes and Star Wars, it has been an uphill battle.  I have no problem hunting from rare and hard to get items but an entire line of figures that just seems to be never stocked???    I remember it was July of last year and all I could find were Cloud Car Pilots and General Lando figures and thousands of Hoth Han Solo Legacy figs yet there were times I made a few great scores.   Meanwhile, this was not the case for 30th anniversay Joe figures as the  racks were empty for months pretty much until Renegades came out and we saw nothing by Scarletts and emo Cobra Commanders warming the pegs.   It took me 3 months to find Sci-Fi, LifeLine and the Techno-Viper and never was able to find the modern Alley Viper or Shock Trooper.   I could only shrug at the hard to find stuff and chalk it up that I must have missed the boat.  No big deal.  If Hasbro wanted to short pack army builders like the Gamorrean Guard or withhold a pretty major player like Wedge Antilles, so be it.

Two Walmarts...At least the one in Shamokin (right) seems to have a post PM wave (even though for some reason they decided to include Logray and Bom Vimdin and a bunch of other repacks...)

Then the Phantom Menace was re-released....

Okay, so I was already a little confused when I saw prequel figs on vintage cardbacks from the very beginning.  I personally hate the prequels and, in all honesty, they were the sole reason why it took me a decade to dip my feet back into the Star Wars pool.   Nothing has ever turned me off to something I previously loved so much like these movies to this franchise.  But I'll save you a Phantom Menace / prequel rant.  Head over to redlettermedia if you want to see in almost the format of doctoral thesis why these movies very well destroyed all that was well and good with the galaxy far, far away.   Nick May also did an article on SongsofSalmon explaining in his words why the Phantom Menace ruined the Vintage Collection.  Great read, btw.  Nonetheless, all I saw in prequel figs on vintage cardback was asshole characters taking up my original trilogy character's spots and peg space...and not selling well either. (Take a look on amazon's prices, you can get a Kit Fisto for 6 bucks!)  So now, not only were the vintage collection figures being overtaken by prequel entities but now, they were completely REPLACED with said entities...AND from the worst movie in the series... AND in the largest ever produced wave (of 12)  Could you ever imagine 12 Original Trilogy figures coming on Vintage Cardbacks???  I'd be so happy!  But this is reality we live in and usually the opposite happens as it is now.   So anyway, these 12 dickface figures have been sitting on the shelves in every major retailer in the country for 7 months now with seemingly no end in sight.  We've seen (or not seen for that matter)  3 additional waves of figures produced from Hasbro and they have yet to see the light of 90 percent of the major retailers in the country... so what will become of these series?  Are they ever going to make it to the shelves?  I could totally see Hasbro just passing right over them because after this, I  truthfully believe Hasbro hates its' adult fans and customers especially in the Star Wars collections and really fear that the overstock and production of PM figs is going to have long term negative effects on the vintage collection in general.  Some number cruncher in Hasbro's sales department doesn't give two shits if it's a Battle Droid or Grand Moff Tarkin sitting on the shelf.  A stagnated line that actually is costing you money will lead you to only one conclusion, drop the line or scale it back because it's "too risky."

Granted, this is K-Mart and they haven't restocked their Star Wars stuff for over a year.
How are they still opened?

 I've been stopping by TRU, Target and Walmart on a weekly basis for about 28 weeks now.  Why are these retailers holding onto these figures that nobody wants???? I see these shelf spaces...the same Ric Olie Figure is still there at the Dickson City Walmart!  The same young Anakin Pod Racer Pilot is still in the Wilkes Barre TRU! Quinlan Vos (who the hell is this shitface?) is all that is left in the Pittson Walmart!  This is weeks now!  Why aren't these stores taking on new inventory?   It is there! It is ready to order!  Wouldn't you want things actually selling off pegs in very valuable location spaces in your store instead of having dead zones in your toy departments?  I wondered the same thing even before the PM series with the last small one.  Speaking of which, did anyone remember the last pre-PM wave that came out and the hell it was trying to find the Echo Base Trooper or Ponda Baba? (This could easily be a problem when an entire wave is made up of 3 figures...cause that makes sense right?) 

Look at this horrible mess...So I get TWO Jar Jar figures out of 7? Cornucopia from Hell.

Why ever would we get 12 figures shoved down our throats for any toy line is what I want to know?  Hasbro has been downright stingy with many of the figs we wanted to see and get (C-3P0...AT-AT commander)  Then we not only see a 12 figure wave that nobody asked for but an additional Phantom Menace Series for all retailers and an "exclusive" 3d series for Walmart!  3 God-Damned series for one movie?? Do you think that's enough?   How many Anakins and Obi-Wans can I get?  This would be like if Ford was making a new car and looked at the potential buyer market and saw...we have 1 million potential customers....well lets produce 3 million cars! In each of our subdivisions! This would be suicidal policy!  But once again, Phantom Menace knows no bounds in being able to destroy all it touches.  Lucas can't seem to shove this shitty set of movies down our throats enough within re-releases, tweaks, promotions...Darth Maul is coming back for the Clone Wars (I don't care), Jar Jar in carbonite is the FOCAL POINT of the SDCC figure set!!! I don't care if he's frozen...ha ha, no seriously stop devoting molds and figure space around the worst chracter in cinematic history.  That is ultimately what this whole thing is about... buying sets of figures we hate so we can get the little taste of the true vintage figures.  (even the Sandtrooper is a Special Edition one with the stupid scanner droid)  I guarantee we will see a senator Jar Jar before we ever get a Moff Jejerod, Momaw Nadon or Squid Head in the VC.   Turn on any Star Wars feature on Spike TV and what is it?  Prequel!  Want more figures? Prequel!  Well...there's always Galactic Heroes and Fighter Pods or Transforming Star Wars crap to take up some more space.  All I want are the 3 figures per wave that they will produce that won't be  short-packed and not pay 20 dollars a piece on Amazon, am I asking too much???  Is anyone else feeling the same way I do here?