Boy, that escalated quickly
So I was down at Target checking to see if they'd got the Legends action figures of Captain Marvel, instead of just the Barbie ones (they hadn't) (I mean, I got the Barbie ones anyway...), and I take a glance at the Transformers, as I sometimes do - they're right alongside, and Bumblebee had rekindled the old flame that RotF and DotM ruthlessly stamped out. And there's Chromia, and wow, Chromia actually looks pretty good - quite a backpack on her, but good. So Chromia goes on my shelf as a bit of nostalgia. And next week, oh Laserbeak and Ravage in a two-pack? Well they're tiny, what's the harm? There's Soundwave too, he looks really G1 now that I come to take a close look - oh, he turns into some battle-hovercraft thing, that's lame. One youtube video later he turns into a lamppost as well? Mine.
So now I'm collecting Transformers again. Hi folks.
I was a spoiled child in the 80s, so I had plenty of G1 - all gone now (my parents donated them to a school fundraising market once I'd grown out of them - which I don't really regret, my school was perpetually on the brink of being closed back then, and it was an awesome school), except for Slag, who I still have; he must've been lost in a drawer when the rest got cleaned out. (It was quite the trove of 80s classics, I must say - Transformers aside there was Masters of the Universe, GI Joe, Mask, Thundercats, Visionaries... maybe I regret it a bit. But not the Star Wars and Lego, which I still have.) I watched the cartoons, was very into the comics ('City of Fear' still stands out in my memory, as does the image of black-suited Spider-Man sitting on Optimus Prime's shoulder), had one of those little viewmaster things showing the fight on Hoover Dam... good times.
I moved on in time, and never got drawn back to things like Beast Wars or whatever other cartoons were doing the rounds. The first live action movie got me interested again - I still enjoy it, flawed as it is, and I picked up the five Autobots from it, as well as the lady bikes from subsequent waves, just because Arcee and Elita-One's team were the ones I could never find (obviously, what with not existing) way back when, so I've always taken a moment to glance around the aisles to see if there are robot women in whatever's on sale at the time - not necessarily to buy them, I just like to know they're doing well. Hence Chromia, catching up to the present. Dark of the Moon ticked me off to the point of abandoning the franchise though, but then Bumblebee turned it around, and he we are caught up to the present.
So Siege has got its hooks into me something fierce - the more I saw of them, the more it seemed like they're recreating G1, but now actually as amazing as my child brain always believed the G1 toys were. It's the posability that's really sealed the deal - let's be honest, those toys I remember so fondly mostly just stood bolt upright and waved their arms around at the shoulders, but the Siege bots just seem so effortless to get into striking, characterful poses: Chromia hand-on-hip ready to shoot someone between the eyes, Ironhide with his rocket-cannon in a two-hand underslung grip like whatsisname from Predator, Soundwave with Laserbeak perched on his arm, Shockwave in the classic 'The Transformers Are All Dead' pose. Really brings the shelf alive. Also I need a bigger shelf now.
Currently it's Prime, Hound, Ironhide, Chromia, Sideswipe, Prowl, and I spotted Power of the Primes Moonracer at Myer so she's in as well. Of the bads, Megatron (at last), Soundwave (and the kids of course), Starscream, Shockwave. Not Ultra Magnus - I don't mind the guy, but in my mind there's always been a very clear line between the 80s Transformers and the movie/season 3 set. I'm pretty sure what happened was that I heard the 'generation two' name somewhere without really knowing what it applied to, and assumed that meant the 2005-era ones, with 'generation one' being the 80s, so to me they're two different collections. Not that I haven't had a long look at Magnus, who there were still a couple of down at Kings Comics last time I was there, but I have to draw the line somewhere (Arcee, should she appear, will be an exception). Likewise Cog and the gun guy - 'my' Transformers are the ones living in a spaceship stick sideways in a mountain in the desert (or trying to kill those ones), I'm resisting the temptation to broaden out beyond the ones I remember from that era.
(I'll probably have to pass on Omega Supreme though - in an ideal world he'd get the nod, but that's not going to be a cheap bot, and besides his G1 toy was so blatantly a 'take him apart and put him back together' sort that I always felt a bit underwhelmed by him. So Jetfire will be the biggest boy in my set, which I'm fine with - he was one I had in G1, and definitely the one I'm looking forward to most now.)
So that's me, hi everyone.
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Originally Posted by Miss Kitty Fantastico
