Friday, January 17, 2014

My faith has been restored!

I have to say... I have known that I have been gone from the blog for a while, but let me tell you that the last year has been a year of changes.  Last December the pride of my life came into the world, my little girl Parker was born.  This year, she has exceeded the odds and has amazingly kept up with milestones, beating insurmountable odds, however, this site is about my other obsession:  Transformers, so I will save the Parker story for another day.  She has however made me look at my collection and collecting habits and has helped me put everything back into perspective. 

Sadly, I have to say that the year started off quite slowly for me as far as Transformers has been concerned.  I have found more passes this year than I have had in a very, very long time.  The first Transformers Movie line pretty much killed my completest mentality (I am a sucker for a good head mold, that is what makes or breaks the figure for me... after I purchased the third single eye- wanna be video camera drone head, I was done).  This year though really let me leave most stuff on the shelf.  Prime had shifted to the Beast Hunters line, and as I am sucker for show characters, I can say that there was only one Autobot  that I HAD to have... and after I purchased  and then I got the new voyager Prime, I figured that I was done with my Autobots for Prime.  I was surprised by the Prowl and did manage to get him for Christmas, however, I refused to purchase any Beast Hunter versions of the characters that I already owned in their show accurate versions. 

I did however pick up the Beast Hunters Dragons, well at least one of each mold.  I was excited to see how they would be used, and was not overly surprised to find that this whole toyline was pretty much fiction neglected.  I may still pick up Sky-Linx and Darksteel but that is only because they appeared in the Predacons rising finale, but I already have the mold and feel that I have already experienced the molds. 
I did break my no-Cyberverse rule however, for three sets.  Firstly I loved the Prime cartoon, and when I found that Hardshell was getting a figure I felt that I had to have it and troop build him.  This plan ended after 2 Hardshells were acquired, feeling that he was a bit too small for the rest of my prime collection, however I feel that this was a huge win as a Transformer figure all together.  I really am happy with him.  He is one of the only figures that I would jump on if he was added to the new "Cyberverse exploded" toyline that is now starting to appear.  I would jump on 3 or 4 of these bad boys in show accurate colors, at the voyager price point.  I am drooling thinking about the display of 4 insecticons with my army of 6 Vehicons standing in front of them... so Hasbro Please... Please... make this wish come true. 
My second Cyberverse splurge was for the Terrrorcon releases.  I am a sucker for Gestalts.  The only G1 figures that I have on display is my Gestalt collection, so when I heard Abomunus was seeing a new release I hopped on it.  Currently I have four of the five still mint on card until Rippersnapper is found, but I also have the Target boxed set so I could get the full experience. 
The third splurge started after the announcement of Swerve and Cosmos coming this year, and I had to backtrack to find my smaller G1 Cyberverse Prime and Bumblebee.  I still need to find Megatron and Starscream, but I am rater impressed with these figures.  I do think the smaller size, and ease of transformation would help try to capture kids back into the action figure isle.  They are still not for me, but I will pick up my G1 characters and continue to grow my Chug Collecion.
My Classics are really where Hasbro has won me over this year, after a lackluster start.  The year started a scavenger hunt for the War for Cybertron figures.  They were nice but suffered from the smaller size.  Really they make my previous WFC deluxe figures look ginormous.  Also with such anticipation for a Shockwave figure to fit in that line, I love the WFC Shockwave, however my Energon Shockblast still stands next to my Classics Megatron.  Then distribution was so backed up with the Optimus, Shockwave, and  Jazz wave that it was almost impossible to find wave 2 and a full Bruticus or Ruination. 
When Classics returned, they did so amazingly with the introduction of the Thrilling 30.  I still find myself staring at the Classics Springer, who was almost the figure of the year.  Hasbro really did something with Springer that they should have a couple of years ago, but late is better than never.  Springer restored my faith in Hasbro.  I remember in late 2012 hitting the forums and overpaying for a GDO Springer.... just so I had a sword for my Botcon Springer... but still it didn't quite fit.  I was remorseful that I didn't buy the Warbot Defender.  Hasbro wasn't going to release the figure that I wanted.  Then the Thrilling Springer arrived.  The proof is in the secondary market people.  This is exactly how Hasbro needs to combat the 3rd party dilemma.  Warbot has plummeted in price... and it happened almost over night as Springer hit shelves in Walmart and Target. 
My faith in Hasbro has been completely restored and I find myself now not even looking at much 3rd party now because of one absolutely amazing design thanks to Emilano S!

Metroplex was a gift to me from my amazing wife for Christmas.  He stands taller than Fort Max and is so solid that I can't believe it!  This is the type of thing that I have been waiting on Hasbro to provide for us... and they finally have!  I won't lie... if there were a Metrotitan release of him, I would be more than willing to shell out another $125 to add him to my collection.  I am hoping that Metro is going to start a trend for the Transformers product line.  I really hope that we will be seeing a Trypticon in coming years, and hopefully Max and Scorponok again!
Metroplex has completely re-energized my collector mentality.  I am fully excited and am jumping at all of the IDW deluxe figures.  I am finally tackling my half box full of my TF comics that I still have to read.  I am thinking about what all I could do on this blog.  I am excited and wanting to start blogging about my collection again, and ready to start rediscovering my collection.
I feel that with the Bay movies my collection became somewhat stale.  I have a group of figures that I have barely tinkered with, and want to rediscover them.  I fell like for a while there I was trying to just pull everything that I could and I know that a lot got lost in the shuffle.  I am planning to revisit my cases.  I am going to organize them and get they ready for the impending move my wife and I are starting to talk about.  It really is nice to have a passion for my passion again.  Before the Trilling began I really was starting to try to figure out why I was still doing it.  Thank you Hasbro... please keep up the good work.  I was worried about the new simplified theory floating around, but seeing what the two tiered approach did to Star Wars, those worries have all gone away.  I am looking forward to the collector tier of Transformers coming out this year, and at least now I don't have to worry about trying to "catch them all."  
As I wrap this post up... just one more pic of the amazing Emilano design, looking forward to more of them arriving this year!

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