M'Kyuun

@Dobber My Fiery Thunderbolt is currently at LAX presumably awaiting customs. Given the weather we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest and the general travel time, I figure I'll have him in hand towards the end of next week, or early the following week. I also have Iron Factory's take on Beachcomber enroute; it's currently in Las Vegas, so I'll likely get him early next week. I'm curious: Do your orders from Asia arrive at East Coast air/seaports, or do they come through California as well? I figured stuff on that side of the country probably came though Atlanta, but I'm hazarding a guess.

Same boat as far as Acousticwave; there just wasn't that much improvement over MP Soundwave, which remains one of the best MP releases to date, IMHO. Since the MP cassettes and the G1 cassettes share real world scale, FT's Cassetticons will fit in nicely. I haven't checked to see if they'll fit in G1 Soundwave, but that would be cool. I still don't understand or like Hasbro's decision to downsize the cassettes for the WFC line; had they maintained real world scale, everything would have been universal, and the slightly larger scale would have lent itself to better engineering. When the G1 toys are superior to modern releases, there's something wrong. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these guys after having had a chance to handle them yourself.

I recently received Fans Toys' Robot Paradise RP-01B Cassetticons set which comes with Corvus (Laserbeak), Shadow (Ravage), and Firrib (Rumble). Fans Toys are obviously aware of the red or blue debate between Rumble and Frenzy, as they give little bios on the box, and for Firrib they state, "Firrib, the red robot, who is almost certainly blue. The demolitions expert can use his arm pile drivers to cause earthquakes that bring down buildings and enemy encampments". 😄 I got a nice chuckle out of that, and I heartily agree- Rumble will always be blue, or bluish-purple, in my mind. Upon opening the package and sliding the tray out, my first reaction was to the weight of these things; in true FT fashion, there is ample die-cast employed, and while they feel good in hand, and are painted superbly, ultimately my concern is with how well the joints will last on these figs. On small highly articulated toys like this, I think I'd prefer the die-cast was used sparingly for high risk-breakage parts, like Laserbeak's cannons, and plastic used for the rest. Since these have been out for a while now, and any number of the usual YT reviewers have reviewed them, I'm going to focus more on comparing them to the Takara MP cassettes that came with MP Soundwave back in 2013. MP Laserbeak (L) and FT Corvus (R) Arguably the best of the MP cassettes, Laserbeak set the fandom abuzz in a good way when pics were first released, and eight years later, it's still an impressive design. The ability to fold his jet packs into the cassette was remarkable and groundbreaking, and the addition of the little retractable camera in his head was the proverbial icing on the cake. FT's Corvus not only copies those features, but adds additional articulation to the wings, as the inner wing is free to rotate back further than the MP, flap up and down through an arc of maybe 10 degrees, as well as rotate on a mushroom peg to change the angle of attack. Like the MP, the outer wing is on a double hinge which allows for a generous range of poseablity. Corvus' outer wings are also longer than MP Laserbeak's. On both toys, the feet can rotate on a pin joint, and the legs can swivel down independently. FT chose to put Corvus' neck on a slider like the G1 toy, but, like the MP fig, only used a simple pin joint to allow the head to rotate up and down; a ball joint would have been great here to allow Corvus to turn his head sideways. Neither has an opening beak, but Corvus' beak is more robust and toon accurate than the MP. The retracting camera on the MP was molded so that it's looking straight ahead with LB's head angled down, whereas Corvus' camera is supposed to be pointing straight ahead in line with the top of his head, but it can't quite open to 90 degrees on mine, so it's always angled slightly down towards the top of his head. IMHO, Takara did it better, and who can say why FT didn't just copy it. Too, IDK why they chose to mold it in light grey instead of black to match the head. Both are odd decisions that didn't favor the toy's accuracy. Cassette mode: Right up front, pertaining to all three cassettes being discussed, Takara did a more convincing job with their cassette modes. That said, FT put in a good effort, and while I think Takara aimed more for balance between the modes, FT opted far more in favor of the bot modes. Since most of us will only keep them in cassette form for storage, that's fine. FT's cassettes are 2-3 mm thicker than the official cassettes. I was able to put two FT cassettes and an official in MP Soundwave, but I was unable to close his chest hatch with all three FT cassettes on board. Rumble and Firrib: Both of these toys have strengths and weaknesses: Rumble looks great from the waist up, but the thighs were very thin due to transformation, and they rotate below the hip skirt, which looks a little awkward. The shoulders on the Takara are on ball pegs, which allows them natural movement in an excellent range, and the arms are proportionate and aesthetically pleasing. Conversely, Firrib's shoulders are mounted on sliding pins which allow for some slight clearance between the arms and the body, but only allow fore and aft rotation in a single plane. Shoulder abduction/adduction is achieved through a body mounted joint like that used in SS86 Hot Rod and Kingdom Rodimus, which makes any lateral posing of the arms an awkward affair. Moreover, the shoulders mount low on Firrib due to the aforementioned joint's use in transformation. There's a transformation swivel above the natural elbow which allows the forearm to rotate 90 degrees laterally; it looks like his arm is broken, but it's something you can do. There's unfortunately no bicep swivel, but the elbows can rotate a little beyond 90 degrees. His head, like the Takara toy's, flips out of the body on a rotation joint between the shoulders and can rotate 360 on a swivel. He can hold his back cannons in his hands; the peg that holds the cannon into the cassette reel hole is truncated into two half-moon posts, the aft smaller one fitting into the hand while the valley between posts rests over the hand. The cannon can also fold up and store inside the leg while in cassette mode. Like the MP fig, Firrib's waist extends down out of the torso for transformation, but also like the MP, there's no waist swivel. The waist joint is pretty loose on mine, retracting into the body with very little pressure. The hip joints mount at the pelvis via mushroom pegs and can rotate just a touch over 90 both fore and aft. They can abduct to 90 degrees on pin joints, which are already quite loose on my copy. The thighs swivel 360 on mushroom pegs. The knees are double jointed and allow for 180 degrees of bend. The ankles are on ball pegs, the ball section attached to the leg and a pin joint at the actual ankle, which still allows for about 20 degrees of toe up, as much back as you like, and about 5 degrees of rocker. Both the backs of the thighs and the entire lower legs are hollow, which might bother some folks. At this scale, given the range of motion possible, I take no issue. The entire fig is painted crisply, except for his feet which are shiny die-cast. While the body of his back cannons are plastic, the little folding wing and barrel are both shiny unpainted die-cast as well. I didn't include his pile drivers in this review, but both are also nicely painted plastic and feature a spring-loaded feature to pop the ends of the drivers out. I wish we had an amalgam of the two toys - Rumble's upper body, and Firrib's waist and legs, as each did the one better than the other. At the end of the day, I still think Takara's Rumble is the better toy, as it has all the articulation of the FT fig, better in the case of the arms, and makes a more convincing cassette to boot. Too, after eight years, my Rumble's joints are still pretty tight throughout, whereas, after only a modicum of handling since Monday, the lateral hip joints are already extremely loose on my Firrib. Too much die-cast in a small toy with small joints that simply can't handle the weight. Ravage and Shadow Full disclosure, Ravage is my favorite of the cassettes, and after the remarkable job Takara did with Laserbeak, I was beside myself in anticipation of the exceptional Ravage they were sure to roll out. One might still call it exceptional, but not necessarily in the most positive of lights. It could have been better, and for the last eight years I've been waiting for that better to come to fruition. When FT revealed their take, I was more than just a little intrigued, and I'd be lying if I said I bought this set for any other reason. The other two looked nice, but Shadow was a step above. Again, both toys have their strengths and weaknesses, but from a purely aesthetic POV, FT hewed very close to the toon model, for the better. While Takara attempted a more unconventional transformation, FT chose to reference the G1 toy's transformation, which makes its cassette mode weaker, but results in a better-looking jaguar. Articulation-wise, the neck rotates about 180 between the shoulders, and the head itself is on a ball joint allowing for some slight up and side rotation, not as much as I'd like, but more than I ever expected. The jaw can open and close and he even has little top and bottom canines in there.😍 The front shoulders, knees, and paws are all mounted on pin joints. Ball jointed shoulders would have been nice, but not really feasible given the transformation space limitations. All offer plenty of range for decent posing, so no issues. The hips are on ball pegs, which offers slightly more range, whilst the knees and back paws are merely pinned, but sill offer plenty of poseability. The tail can swing down, but due to a very low attachment point, doing it breaks the sculpt. There's a little bit of a hollow area between the 'humps' of the shoulders, but it doesn't bother me. The body feels a tad too long to me, and I kinda wish they'd put the aft assembly where the hips connect on a slider to compress the body by a few mm. The front shoulders are also noticeably thin, but that's an artifact of the transformation. Notably, the sculptwork throughout emulates the toon very well, which was the greatest weakness of the MP version, and the point of appeal for me. MP Ravage however, betters it with superior front shoulder articulation on a ball joint with a bicep swivel. Too, the bulkier shoulder has its appeal as to defining the whole body shape, even if it's not toon accurate. Ravage's tail can be rotated without ruining the sculpt, although it's offset from center, also an artifact of transformation. From here it just gets worse: the stick-like body, the too long and thick neck, the square hips and odd-looking back legs all conspire to make it a decidedly unappealing take on Ravage's usually lithe form. I still prefer the look of the G1 toy over it- it was a walking wafer with parts-forming jets, but the overall sculpt looks much better to me. FT simply took that design and advanced it, and I think the result speaks for itself. And here's my attempt to capture the old box art pose. LEGO to the rescue when you need an ad-hoc prop. So, having had the chance to handle these guys for a couple of days, the engineering is not as refined as I'd hoped it would be, especially for $120, with the bulk of my ire directed at the poor shoulder design and weak waist extension joint on Firrib. I think the use of die-cast is too liberal, as it only serves to weaken the joints that much quicker, and I already have some loose joints after very little manipulation. As updates to eight-year-old figures, Corvus and Shadow mostly succeed whereas Firrib falls short, IMHO. Are they worth spending the high tag if you already have MP Soundwave or FT's Acousticwave? For most I'd say no, but if you really like the cassette bots or you're like me and that Ravage(Shadow) looks too good to pass up, and you can spare the ducats, go for it. Note: While I mentioned that some of the die-cast on these was unpainted, like Shadow's jets, it's my own assumption that it's just polished. If it's indeed painted or chromed, feel free to let me know.

Thanks, Mike.

Well, crap, I missed out on Blaster. I've been checking Pulse periodically to see if they had him available, but they never have. Figures I miss out when they do. I don't go to Target very often, and on my last trip, they were pretty much cleaned out from Christmas. I don't feel like paying a markup for this guy, but at the same time, I want him. Hopefully Pulse will restock, as I at least get free shipping.

Yep, him too. Thanks! I stand corrected. I should have looked a little harder at the screenshot, but all I was focused on was Daniel's orientation. But yeah, the toy's accurate so far as the orientation of the access bubble and the white half cones that flank it. So, I wonder if there's a little rotation mechanism that let's Spike's head orient correctly depending on mode. Even so, my interest is pretty low for this fig. Again, it's cool they made it, but it's just not really doing much for me.

I may be in the minority, but I never cared for the exo-suits that Daniel and Spike wore. I guess it's cool that they 'transformed', but it just looked like a folded up exo-suit to me. Why the heck is Spike laying on his side in wheeled thing mode when Daniel was shown laying on his belly? The toy just looks odder for the weird sideways configuration. Great for those who like it, but easy pass for me. Since they're doing stuff like this, I hope we get a new Brawn and Gears to round out the first season cast.

I'd be down with more AniMatrix style side stories; the world itself is open to all sorts of storytelling, and that's fertile ground for exploration. As to Resurrections: I think the film will exist longer and have more impact for its not-so-subtle commentary on the state of fandom, Hollywood and WB specifically, video gaming, and the expectations and banality of it all, than for the more lackluster love story that comprises the second half of the film. I think the middle finger we see on Neo's shelf alongside all his Matrix toys and collectibles was purposeful, and a reflection of at least Lana's feelings. As Matrix movies go, this one is the least Matrix-y; It feels very half-hearted, and I think the commentary at the beginning of the film says a lot about Lana's frame of mind towards the fandom, the studio, and just the nature of pop culture. Making something incredibly successful and game-changing is a double-edged sword; the benefits of such a success, both critically and financially, must be unimaginably gratifying, but on the other side, there's always the expectation to up the ante, to better it somehow, regardless of medium. Add to that the capricious, fickle, and often unkind nature of humanity, and success becomes a bit of a burden to replicate the original's success without simply retreading. From the subtext of Thomas Anderson's conversation with his boss, Warner was going to make the film with or without the Washowski's involvement, and I think Lana, although reluctant, decided to do it so that she could at least make it per her vision rather than someone else's. It's notable that only Lana was involved; Lilly seems to have stayed out of it entirely, which is a little sad considering it's an amazing franchise that they created together. Alas it's done, and hopefully it'll stay that way. But, the option of doing side stories remains intriguing, and hopefully something along those lines will come to pass, much as Star Wars has been doing. The world of the Matrix is far too interesting to let it go dormant, and there are a lot of talented story-tellers out there who can wring a good tale or two out of it yet.

Me too! Pretty excited for this fig.

I can't begin to count the hours of joy and laughter she's given me over the years, most notably as Rose in Golden Girls, but also her other film and tv appearances. She certainly had that "something" that captivates, a natural performer and comedienne. The world is poorer for her loss. RIP

Hail Mary, I presume. I got it for Christmas, and I'll start it once I finish Cloud Cuckoo Land. I love Weir's sense of humor, and his approach to writing sci-fi. I'm not sure he'll ever eclipse The Martian, but I enjoyed Artemis, and look forward to diving into Hail Mary.

For fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I recently read a pair of novels by F.C. Yee titled The Rise of Kyoshi and The Shadow of Kyoshi. Kyoshi was an Avatar several Avatars removed in the past before Aang. While there are moments of humor, the overt humor of the TLA and Korra is absent, but the story of how Kyoshi became Avatar and the challenges she faces very early on in her Avatar-hood make for interesting reading. I enjoyed both books, and hope Mr. Yee along with Michael DiMartino work together to bring us more early Avatar stories.

It does look good. I thought the greyscale model looked good, but that black w/ gold accents looks awesome. While I'm waiting, I need to find a home for this beauty. Space is at a premium around here.

I shall never be accused of being a football fan, or any sport for that matter, but even I have heard of John Madden. he was the voice of pro-Football for years, and he always struck me as being a jolly giant of a man, especially in tv ads where he became known to me growing up. RIP

Thanks, Chris. I didn't see any projection, but that works for me. I've no doubt it'll release soon, and I rest easy knowing the payment is already done, as I've already had a couple things canceled due to not seeing the emails requesting payment on some previous products. I don't want this one to slip through my fingers due to my own inattentiveness. For now, it's a waiting game, and I'm good at waiting.

I searched the forums to see if there was already a topic dedicated to books we've read, or are reading, that made an impression, and came up with no pertinent results. So I'm starting a topic dedicated to good books, graphic novels, etc that was interesting for one reason or another and worth sharing. To kick it off, I'm currently reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I'm only about a fifth of the way into it, but I'm finding it to be one of those reads that's both easy yet compelling. It's essentially a series of narratives set in three time periods- one in the mid fifteenth century Constantinople, one in 2020 Idaho, and one in a future period on a colony ship in space, all revolving around a central theme of Antonius Diogenes' eponymous utopian myth. The primary characters are all very well developed, and Diogenes' tale, the constant thread that ties all three narratives together, is itself a fun story as it's told little by little as the overarching narratives continue. I enjoy a read like this; there are usually esoteric bits of knowledge to be gleaned from such works if the author has done his or her due diligence, the interweaving of a constant thread amidst separate tales skillfully done is deeply gratifying, and an easily navigable prose unassailed by numerous tangents or difficult abstractions makes for a relaxing and absorbing read. The history of Diogenes' writings is itself interesting, as he wrote a series of tales, each beginning with one of the 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. Unfortunately, the original volume is lost to us, and what remains to us of this extensive work is a synopsis by another Greek writer named Photios in his own tome called Myriobiblos. With any luck, the original volume in its entirety will be discovered some day. For all the ancient writings we have, it's sad to think of the untold volumes of stories and knowledge lost to us through time by nature or the hand of man.

@slaginpit@mikeszekely Payment went through on the 21st. I'm not panicking so much as just wondering out loud why it didn't ship with payment made. I've waited this longfor it, and I find as I grow longer in the tooth, so to speak, my patience for such things grows longer as well. It'll get here eventually, I've no doubt: Showz hasn't let me down yet.

@Dobber Still waiting for Sci-Industry's Fiery Thunderbolt Helo to ship from Showz. Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release", which strikes me a little odd if they have stock in warehouse, as that's generally what prompts them to ask for full payment. Has yours shipped, or are you waiting for release too? My Iron Factory take on Beachcomber shipped, and I paid for it right around the same time. I figured both would ship together, but apparently not.

Just got back from seeing it, and it was definitely another strong entry. Spiderman has long been one of my favorite Marvel heroes, so I have an ounce of bias when watching these movies. That said, I have to concur that the performances were strong, but I'm not as excited by introducing the whole multiverse idea. I think I'd prefer their keeping the stories in the here and now with a cossover character here and there. That said, it was a really fun and nostalgic jog to see so many former players from previous Spiderman films in this. Too, the story was well-written around the central choice that Holland's Spiderman makes as opposed to Dr. Strange's solution. It's a bolder and more interesting choice from a story-telling perspective to show allies in opposition rather than just portray them as always in agreement, and IMHO, this movie did it well. Anyway, the actors from the older films stepped flawlessly back into their roles, and it was great to see.

I love it when sets can be stored in their boxes with minimal teardown, as that's how 90% of my collection is stored. Takes up a lot of room, though, which has become the primary albatross concerning my hobbies. We like what we like, and I hope Titanic, big lady that she is, brings a sense of fulfillment. I never would have dared imagine that LEGO would make stuff like Titanic as a kid, nor the Architectural stuff, so I applaud them for stretching beyond the limitations of their more child-targeted themes. Of course, LEGO has been making more mature sets for decades, starting with their Expert Builder sets in the late 70s, moving on into Technic and Model Team in the 80s and 90s. I think, if not purposefully like today's adult-targeted sets, there was always the subconscious appeal of a lot of LEGO's more mature offerings early on that grabbed the attention of adults. Unfortunately, a lot of us kept our LEGO buying on the down-low for fear of ridicule. I did, but no more. I'm proud of my hobby, the wholesomeness and creativity that it offers. I wish I'd felt that way in my 20s.

The Titanic set lives up to its name. It's a cool set, but with limited space, and less interest for it than for other sets, like my glorious UCS AT-AT😍😍😍, I'm happy enjoying it vicariously. LEGO's botanicals are some neat sets, as well. I've been thinking about getting the Bonsai Tree. Ironically, we recently had a friend offer us the real thing, but hers is a rather large specimen, and we just have nowhere to put it where it would get the sun it needs, nor the pruning attention. So, the LEGO version seems even more appealing. Gotta pick up a few of those dk green Technic panels they used for leaves on the Bird of Paradise for a MOC I'm working on. Have fun with the Titanic- gonna be pretty sweet when it's done!

Looking forward to picking this set up. The combined mech is a little unrefined compared to any number of Bandai Super Robot offerings and combining Transformers over the years, but as LEGO's second combiner (Ideas Voltron was their first), and their first homegrown design, it's exciting for the promise of more to come, and hopefully a bit of engineering /parts evolution. I can only hope.😍 Note the new streamlined hip joint pieces, which I've been begging for for years, as well as the new socket joint, which appears to have more surface area in the cup, and hopefully, too, more friction than the piece it's replacing. I keep hoping they'll start making this piece again to accompany their Mixel joint system---so, so useful. I wish the new Lunar sets were releasing on the first as well, but I believe they're slated to release as part of the summer wave. Alas, Christmas provided me a few new 2021 sets to build, so I've still got plenty of bricks to click before 2022's bounty of new goodness arrives. There's a rumor that LEGO is going to be making Horizon: Zero Dawn sets, with an alleged listing for a 90 Euro Tallneck set having been spotted in a European retailers' catalog. Man, I hope so. LEGO is already set to resurrect their Overwatch license next year, which pleases me greatly, but I've been hoping for official H:ZD sets since having owned the game. There are some incredible MOCs of the various machine creatures from Zero Dawn that demonstrate how well LEGO lends itself to replicating the look of those designs, and it seemed a remarkable lost opportunity for LEGO to not pursue a license. However, with a second game set to launch very soon, I guess they felt it was successful enough to gamble on, or at least I hope so. Should the rumor prove true, I'll be getting most if not all the sets. Dreaming a little, but now that there's an agreement in place, LEGO's acquisition of the Macross license would be glorious in the extreme. I think it's extremely unlikely due to its relative anonymity outside of Asia, not to mention the challenging engineering involved, but like I said, it's merely a dream. hell, I'd be happy if they just resurrected the Exo-Force theme with better built bots.

Nice display- just oozes G1, with all the feels. I feel the same way so far as brand loyalty; I have none. I have preferences, but that's not the same thing. I buy every fig on its own merits and by how it strikes me. I have a few nitpicks, but little in the way of regret, which is about as close to content as you can be in this hobby. I'm just glad that Transformers existed past the 80s, that it has enjoyed such an evolution in engineering and quality, and that we have the privilege of choice often times with which iteration of a character(s) we want. It's beyond what I ever hoped for in my teens looking at my nigh-immobile G1 toys and dreaming of better.

I never met nor spoke with Derrick, but like many other artists who've had a strong impact on a show or franchise that I like, I appreciated his contribution with extreme gratitude. I didn't start off as a fan of Derrick's art direction, but between the visuals and Marty Isenberg's incredible storytelling, I quickly embraced Animated as one of my favorite entries in the TF Universe. I'm also a big fan of the toys that the show spawned, and greatly lament that neither fourth season, nor its toys, ever came to pass. Alas, Derrick was more than just an artist, and by all accounts he was a talented, fun guy who defended his work on his own behalf and the behalf of his fans. He himself was a fan, especially of Ben 10, for which he also contributed, and it makes me happy that as an artist, he had that opportunity to work on something for which he had a deep passion. My heart goes out to his family, friends, and fellow fans, for such a profound and untimely loss. Wherever he is now, I hope he's wearing an Omnitrix and enjoying the heck out of it.

Sad news: Derrick J. Wyatt has passed away Although his body of work wasn't limited to just Transformers: Animated, that show is how he became known to me. Love it or hate it, or at least the art direction he created for it, it made a mark on TF history for being something different, and the subsequent toys followed suit. Like many fans, I initially balked at the art design, but after watching the show and becoming a fan, I came to embrace it as one of my favorite takes on our beloved Robots in Disguise. That was all Derrick, and I'm thankful to this day that Hasbro took the gamble on that new direction. It certainly posed challenges for Takara, as they weren't designs easily translated to three-dimensional transforming toys, but IMHO, the majority of Animated toys did a fair to excellent job of capturing the nuances of the on-screen characters. They remain some of my favorite TF toys ever made, and take up a fair portion of my desk's real estate to this day, and for the foreseeable future. Thanks Derrick; you left a cool legacy, and you are lost to us, family, friends, and fans alike, way too soon. RIP good sir.